[chias]

Assuming that this tool is not adjusting for inflation, the value of the initial investments vary considerably in spite of being anchored to $1,000.

For example, comparing investing $1,000 in Apple's IPO in 1980 to investing $1000 in Facebook's IPO in 2012, the investment in Apple is almost triple the investment in Facebook: $1,000 in 1980 is $2,786 in 2012.

[rubyfan]

How would you do it differently? Would you adjust for inflation or look for a different indicator like a rate of return over time or compare to an index fund over the same time?

[chias]

Each company you select shows you how many today's-dollars you'd have today given the "same" initial investment. Given that, it seems to me it would make the most sense for the initial investments to be the same value, instead of the same number.

In this application, it would make more sense for each initial investment to have the same value instead of the same number, i.e. having an initial investment of however many dollars would be equivalent to $1000 2021-dollars.

[pottertheotter]

IRR is a common way of evaluating returns.