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Apple becomes the first $1T company

washingtonpost.com

111–120 of 352 posts

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#111
post #30
post #25

"A $600 phone?! Who's going to buy a $600 phone?!" -Steve Balmer

"... and it won't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard"

Come on, he had to say something in public. Behind the closed doors he gave hell to the Windows Mobile team just as soon as he got his hands on that iPhone.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#112
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but an investment in XEM or XRP (Nem or Ripple or Stellar Lumens) None of those is an investment in something with inherent worth. Hence, I'd not call them an investment, but pure speculation.

The worth of a share is what someone will pay you for it.

A share is fractional ownership of the underlying company and all it's assets - that is what gives it value.

A "cryptocurrency" is merely worth what someone else is willing to pay (hence speculative).

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#114
post #54

Good for it. Becoming a trillion dollar company selling quality products people love. Not data mining everything about your life and using it for advertising (Google), ruthlessly destroying competition (Microsoft), or destroying the environment (Exxon). How old fashioned.

We can still complain about their walled-garden approach to software distribution, particularly the extortionist 30% fee and handicapping of non-native apps. Or their kowtowing to the Chinese censors.

> Or their kowtowing to the Chinese censors.

And what exactly is the alternative option for them there? They can either follow the rules in China or completely lose all of their business. That is on China, not Apple.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#115

This will be very controversial, especially in HN, but market cap doesn't mean shit. Apple has roughly $50B in revenue and $120B in equity. Most of it's products could be replaced in less than 5 years by a competitor. Market cap is a measure of public trust among other things but not actual worth or value to society.

Your numbers are completely wrong...apple just had $50B in revenue for its weakest quarter...last quarter they had $60B and in their strongest quarter Q4 they had $89B pre trump tax cuts. If their current growth rate stays the same Apple will hit $280B revenue and $65B in profits.

I’m not sure how you are calculating equity but they have $240B in plain cash. They have so much in IP, and extremely low interest loans.

Market cap does mean something, it’s literally the most meaningful value the world puts on a company

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#116

Everyone talks about Apple as the best possible investment, but an investment in XEM or XRP (Nem or Ripple or Stellar Lumens) in early 2017 surpassed all of Apple in its 30 year history. My money is on Google, Facebook or Amazon eventually surpassing Apple though

No. That would be Domino’s Pizza. https://m.nasdaq.com/symbol/dpz/interactive-chart

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#117
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can still complain about their walled-garden approach to software distribution, particularly the extortionist 30% fee and handicapping of non-native apps. Or their kowtowing to the Chinese censors.

The 30% fee is not baseless. Steam charges 30% to be on its store. Same with PlayStation and Microsoft Store. Seems like it’s the standard distribution fee.

> The 30% fee is not baseless.

I said it was extortionist, not baseless. Of course they deserve a fee. But it's extortionist in the sense that you have no choice, if you want to sell to worldwide mobile users with deep pockets. Apple also forces as many payments as possible to go through their network, and bans apps that try to take payment outside the store if the app does not provide sufficient justification. In fact, they could just probably charge 50% and developers would keep paying them...

> Steam charges 30% to be on its store

Pretty sure Steve Jobs didn't set the 30% price point by looking at the Steam store, lol. More likely it was the other way around and Steam is 30% because the App Store is 30%...

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#118
post #54

Good for it. Becoming a trillion dollar company selling quality products people love. Not data mining everything about your life and using it for advertising (Google), ruthlessly destroying competition (Microsoft), or destroying the environment (Exxon). How old fashioned.

[Maybe I'm being excessively cynical]

Sorry to rain on your paradise, but is there something old-fashioned about using "Double Irish"[1] arrangement to evade legitimate taxes too?

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/apple-s-cash-mountain-ho...

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#119
post #25

"A $600 phone?! Who's going to buy a $600 phone?!" -Steve Balmer

I worked in Windows Mobile at the time. He was just quoting what the best market researchers had told him. We were given a LOT of market research papers with in-depth customer surveys where lots of people said, repeatedly, that they would "never pay money for a phone". If you think back to then, phones were "free" with a 2 year contract. The idea of getting someone who was used to free to switch over to $600 overnigh…

Consumers are just as bad at predicting the future as everyone else. Market research is great for making iterative improvements or learning what people are frustrated with, but it's data, not knowledge, and definitely not prognostication.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worth of a share is what someone will pay you for it.

A share is fractional ownership of the underlying company and all it's assets - that is what gives it value. A "cryptocurrency" is merely worth what someone else is willing to pay (hence speculative).

No, what gives a share value is that someone else is willing to buy it from you for a certain price. The fact that it represents fractional ownership is why someone is willing to pay a certain price to buy it from you. But fundamentally, the value only exists as long as there is a counterparty.
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