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Fast forward a few years to a hypothetical future where Apple is the exact same company but with $500b in cash.

All other things being equal, their stock will be more valuable (and hence market cap higher) because each share also controls a share of all that cash. If they have more cash than market cap, something is wrong. Either you should buy Apple, or they have a lot of debt.

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True -- although in that hypothetical situation, there'd be a lot of pressure to raise the dividend. Investors don't want to have money in such a cash-heavy company, because it's like investing in a mutual fund that takes half your money and sticks it under a mattress. Even if they do good things with the other half of your money (like Apple does) you're halving your potential return right off the bat. Cash in the bank is useful when you need liquidity (unprofitable, danger of recession, potential acquisitions, etc) but $500B is still too high for any of those needs.

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