Big Tech has outgrown this planet🌎
Big Tech has outgrown this planet🌎
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft created a separate universe.
Hi 👋🏻, Welcome to
Rise and Shine☀ - Sunday Special
Every Sunday, an email will arrive in your inbox detailing a specific topic to help you understand it better.
Sign up below for free. 👇🏻
How big is Big Tech?
Big Tech, also known as the GAFAM, Tech Giants, or the Big Five, refers to the five largest and most dominating firms in the United States' information technology industry: Google(Alphabet), Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Together, the Big Five made $75bn in after-tax profits in the second quarter, nearly 90% higher than a year ago, and 30% more than expected.🤯
The current stock market value of the Big Five is greater than the combined worth of the next 27 most valuable US firms, which includes corporate giants such as Tesla, Walmart, and JPMorgan Chase.
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have created their own universe in which they are the sun and everyone else—billions of people, other corporations, entire countries, and governments—are simple planets orbiting them.
So, how did Big Tech get so big?
These companies are more tied to our new reality than ever before: in fact, the big tech companies are involved in a huge proportion of human contacts with digital tech daily, from mobile phones for closed down families to computers used in businesses all over the world.
Apple - $2.25tn
In the last three months alone ($21.7 billion), Apple's profit was nearly above the combined annual profits of the five major US airlines in pre-pandemic 2019.🛫
Microsoft - $1.83tn
The annual revenue of one of Microsoft’s side businesses, LinkedIn, is nearly four times that of Zoom Video Communications, a star of the pandemic, in the past year.👨🏻💻
Alphabet - $1.81tn
Google's $50 billion in ad revenue from April to June was about equal to what Americans—all Americans—spent on gasoline and gas station purchases last month.⛽
Amazon - $1.66tn
Amazon’s stock price increases have made Jeff Bezos so rich that he could buy a new model iPhone for 200 million people—and he would still be a billionaire. Amazon’s e-commerce revenue climbed by $109 bn—an increase in a single year that Walmart needed the past nine years to reach.🛒
Facebook - $1.01tn
In 2021, Facebook expects to spend more money furnishing its computer hubs and offices than Exxon spends in a year digging oil and gas out of the earth throughout the world.🛢
Centibillionaires🤑
The rise of big tech has created the biggest personal fortunes ever seen, and a new class of hyper-rich: the centibillionaires. Almost all of that wealth comes from shares retained by the founders of the business.
Jeff Bezos - $211bn
Larry Page - $103.6bn | Sergey Brin - $100.2bn
Bill Gates - $124bn
Mark Zuckerberg - $114bn
Tesla is a late (and possibly questionable) entry into the large tech ranks. Investors appear to be treating the US electric vehicle manufacturer more like a tech platform. The electric car technology pioneered by Tesla will play a key role in fighting the climate crisis – and investors have belatedly got on board.🚘
That logic has propelled it into the ranks of the world’s most valuable companies (and has recently made its chief executive, Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men).
Hit 💜, if you enjoyed the article, don’t forget to share it with your friends 🤗