Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple becomes the first $1T company

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 352 posts

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#21

Post by ryanmercer »

sna1l wrote: post #8

First public trillion dollar company, right? Source: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/most-valuable-companies-all-...

I guess you missed where that infographic says "inf. adjusted".

Regardless of inflation adjusted or not, Dutch East India shouldn't be considered given their rampant use of slave labor. doing a lot of business off of slave trade (pretty easy to make money when you're kidnapping people and sailing them across an ocean then selling them), having a nearly absolute monopoly, and uh... being government backed.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#22

Post by k__ »

coldcode wrote: post #14

When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's (BS before Steve) they lost $1B while I was there. I left and moved away because I didn't want to be there when it was sold or went out of business. Exactly one year later Steve came back. Oh well. Being there at the time not one person would have ever thought Apple could be viable much less worth $1T.

Somehow I found it funny that companies like Microsoft and Apple basically survived because someone brought a new OS from the outside.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#23

Post by Leary »

HaHa31 wrote: post #18

No. It is the first PUBLICALY TRADED company on the US STOCK MARKET to be valued at $1T. There have been many companies that have broken that point in inflation-adjusted and NON-inflation-adjusted valuations. Three big ones are the Dutch East India company, the most valuable company in history, Standard Oil, the most valuable US company ever, and Saudi Aramco, the current, most valuable company. I've seen to many art…

I have found the calculations for these historic companies to be dubious. They mostly calculate the worth of a company in relation to some historical GDP figure and apply that percentage on a modern GDP figure.

Think about it, how can the Dutch East Indies company be worth $7 trillion dollars when the Netherlands today has a GDP of only $900 Billion, which is after centuries of economic growth.

The Dutch East Indies company may have been comparably more powerful in relation to its time though.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#27

Post by mikekij »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #19
riffraff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're forgetting the paradox free fixed timeline thing. One can go back in time, but he cannot buy stock because he did not in fact buy stock.

One can go back in time but he cannot displace the air atoms where he appeared because he did not displace the atoms in the first place.

I legitimately love that discussions of company valuations can morph into discussions of time travel on HN. Favorite comment threads anywhere.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#28

Post by arethuza »

k__ wrote: post #22
coldcode wrote: post #14

When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's (BS before Steve) they lost $1B while I was there. I left and moved away because I didn't want to be there when it was sold or went out of business. Exactly one year later Steve came back. Oh well. Being there at the time not one person would have ever thought Apple could be viable much less worth $1T.

Somehow I found it funny that companies like Microsoft and Apple basically survived because someone brought a new OS from the outside.

In the case of Microsoft they directly acquired the original DOS and the designers of Windows NT - so they've perhaps done that twice?

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#29

Post by pkaye »

k__ wrote: post #22
coldcode wrote: post #14

When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's (BS before Steve) they lost $1B while I was there. I left and moved away because I didn't want to be there when it was sold or went out of business. Exactly one year later Steve came back. Oh well. Being there at the time not one person would have ever thought Apple could be viable much less worth $1T.

Somehow I found it funny that companies like Microsoft and Apple basically survived because someone brought a new OS from the outside.

Which one did Microsoft buy?
Post reply on HN