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Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

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Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#41

Post by ginko »

Hasknewbie wrote: post #28

"Apple’s market valuation is roughly equal to the national net worth of Denmark (...). In all but name, this is a superpower" Denmark is a really nice country. Also, it is not a superpower.

It's also not true. Apples valuation is around $365 billion, Denmarks _GDP_ is around $370 billion per year.

I'd argue a sovereign country's assets are essentially invaluable, but in Denmark's case there's the interesting historical fact that the US government offered to buy Greenland several times (and always being rebuffed by the Danes), so at least there's an estimate for the value of that island alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_the_United_State...

> If the United States wants it for the strategic value of its property, both on land and offshore, and to project military power, the answer is that a value of $500 billion is not overly rich

EDIT: I got the numbers wrong. Apple Inc. is currently valued at over $1 trillion (I used Apple's total assets from their Wikipedia page) and they mention Denmark's net worth which is indeed in that ballpark. I'd still argue that you can't compare the valuation of a company to the net worth of a sovereign country.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#42

Post by rapsey »

coder1001 wrote: post #34
distances wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia's woes were on software side, not hardware. Building a competitive software stack proved too slow an undertaking for a hardware company. It was Android in the end that ate Nokia's pie, not Apple.

My feeling is that had Apple not released the iPhone, Android would have probably joined the long list of products that Google killed. It is competition from the iPhone (and the possible control of search traffic on mobile devices that Apple would have) that forced Google to focus on Android after acquiring it and this lead to the demise of Nokia and the mobile division of Microsoft. I don't know if Nokia knew the ma…

Apple showed them the way. Before iPhone Android was a nokia knockoff.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#43

Post by th-miracle-257 »

distances wrote: post #14
coder1001 wrote: post #9

Doesn't Apple need the secrecy to survive? Imagine Nokia getting hold of the specs of the original iPhone early before its release, how would the world be today?

Nokia's woes were on software side, not hardware. Building a competitive software stack proved too slow an undertaking for a hardware company. It was Android in the end that ate Nokia's pie, not Apple.

I think another HW (Semiconductor) company is facing the same problem; its competitor is surging ahead full steam and the future may put the smartphone as one of the inflection points where it all began, connecting the dot backwards of course.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#44

Post by jotm »

ginko wrote: post #41
Hasknewbie wrote: post #28

"Apple’s market valuation is roughly equal to the national net worth of Denmark (...). In all but name, this is a superpower" Denmark is a really nice country. Also, it is not a superpower.

It's also not true. Apples valuation is around $365 billion, Denmarks _GDP_ is around $370 billion per year. I'd argue a sovereign country's assets are essentially invaluable, but in Denmark's case there's the interesting historical fact that the US government offered to buy Greenland several times (and always being rebuffed by the Danes), so at least there's an estimate for the value of that island alone: https://en…

Let's go by the price of land in Denmark. 25,000 Euros per hectare in 2009. That's for agricultural land.

Greenland does not support agriculture, but it does have natural resources, and can have a good strategic value. So let's say it's 10,000 Euros per hectare, a good discount.

It would cost 2.6 trillion Euros, or 2.9 trillion US Dollars.

Everything has a price, I wonder if that would be acceptable for Denmark and under what conditions.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#46

Post by grecy »

jotm wrote: post #44
ginko wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not true. Apples valuation is around $365 billion, Denmarks _GDP_ is around $370 billion per year. I'd argue a sovereign country's assets are essentially invaluable, but in Denmark's case there's the interesting historical fact that the US government offered to buy Greenland several times (and always being rebuffed by the Danes), so at least there's an estimate for the value of that island alone: https://en…

Let's go by the price of land in Denmark. 25,000 Euros per hectare in 2009. That's for agricultural land. Greenland does not support agriculture, but it does have natural resources, and can have a good strategic value. So let's say it's 10,000 Euros per hectare, a good discount. It would cost 2.6 trillion Euros, or 2.9 trillion US Dollars. Everything has a price, I wonder if that would be acceptable for Denmark and u…

> Everything has a price

This idea needs to die. It is simply not true.

It's so stupid to say that, and clearly only people obsessed with money actually believe it. We're killing the planet in the quest for ever more money, and tons of people have absolutely no interest in more money. They want more time and more health.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#47

Post by thaumasiotes »

elfexec wrote: post #40
spectramax wrote: post #6

Another way to think about this topic is that China's CEO is Xi Jingpin. There are a few distinctions between calling China a company and calling Apple a nation: - A nation uphelds the law whereas a company uses proxies (lobbying) to make laws - A nation has diplomatic rights, a company has to abide by export controls - A nation has a treasury, has control over interest rates and can prosecute violators, it ensures a…

> Another way to think about this topic is that China's CEO is Xi Jingpin. He's more like the chairman. He sets the direction that he wants china to go in, others execute his plan. > There are a few distinctions between calling China a company and calling Apple a nation: Nobody is calling china a company and apple a nation. People are talking about money and influence. Apple certainly doesn't have the money and influ…

For another example, the British Raj originated when the British East India Company conquered India. There's nothing historically unusual about a private company operating its own military force.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#48

Post by modo_mario »

distances wrote: post #14
coder1001 wrote: post #9

Doesn't Apple need the secrecy to survive? Imagine Nokia getting hold of the specs of the original iPhone early before its release, how would the world be today?

Nokia's woes were on software side, not hardware. Building a competitive software stack proved too slow an undertaking for a hardware company. It was Android in the end that ate Nokia's pie, not Apple.

They swapped to Android too late but honestly I would have seen them turning it around some. Bringing in Stephen Elop to then have Microsoft strangle em some more to push the winphones was what fucked em up more imo.

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#49

Post by afthonos »

culturestate wrote: post #32
dmitriid wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd want to foster a corporate culture of extreme openness and collaboration inside the walls Open space offices are entirely othogonal to this idea.

How so? I'd argue that while open-plan offices can profoundly affect people's productivity and morale, they have relatively little impact on collaboration or communication - I view these more as functions of the team's culture. As long as your group makes a conscious effort to bounce ideas around and ask each other for advice, what's the difference between sitting at a table wearing headphones or in an office with th…

That’s what “orthogonal” means, in this context … :-)

Re: Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations

#50

Post by [deleted] »

distances wrote: post #14
coder1001 wrote: post #9

Doesn't Apple need the secrecy to survive? Imagine Nokia getting hold of the specs of the original iPhone early before its release, how would the world be today?

Nokia's woes were on software side, not hardware. Building a competitive software stack proved too slow an undertaking for a hardware company. It was Android in the end that ate Nokia's pie, not Apple.

[deleted]
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