It shouldn't change how you interpret the stock price growth, but it should change how you interpret the total return of the company. The graph that was shown

It shouldn't change how you interpret the stock price growth, but it should change how you interpret the total return of the company. The graph that was shown is misleading because it only represents the share price growth over the last ten years, which was down (or flat). For much of that time Microsoft was paying quarterly dividends, which means shareholders were yielding some return from their Microsoft stock even if the share price wasn't appreciating.