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Apple becomes the first $1T company

washingtonpost.com

311–320 of 352 posts

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculative investments are like gambling. Don't be sorry for Apple. Try FB...they may hit the trillion dollar cap as well..who knows...it's all just speculation.

FB has a problem with young people leaving. I wouldn't invest in FB.

What are these young people using instead? WhatsApp? Instagram?

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#312
Reminds me of the email Steve Jobs sent after Apple's market cap passed Dell:

> Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/technology/michael-dell-s...

That market cap was $72.13 billion in 2006, by the way. What an amazing run Apple has made.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#313
post #242

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The phones were actually free back then. There was no BYOD discount on any of the major networks. The most I've ever spent on a phone was $200 for a Motorola Razer after damaging my first one before it was upgrade time. Now I use a Moto G4 Play, and it's great. Why anyone would spend more than $200 on a phone unless there is a business requirement (ie, it makes you money) is beyond me.

> Why anyone would spend more than $200 on a phone unless there is a business requirement (ie, it makes you money) is beyond me. Are you also surprised that people spend over 50000€/$ on a car? The answer is simple: because it turns out that having nice things is nice.

When the difference between the two cars amounts to banal gadgetry of little utility, yes.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#314

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> this is the first U.S. company to hit $1 trillion What's the other one?

PetroChina did it in 2007: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/petrochina-soars-to-1-tril... *edited to include link

including state owned companies, which is really just government assets themselves, isn't really relevant.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#315

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Turning that argument around, in a fair and competitive market would it be impossible for a company to grow to a $1T valuation? Do you think the majority of Apple's $1T valuation is attributable to abuse of government regulation or patents?

> in a fair and competitive market would it be impossible for a company to grow to a $1T valuation? It depends on your definition of "fair". In my view, such a market would be regulated as to avoid that companies become too big to the point of turning into black holes that suck everything around them. Money attracts top talent and allows companies to buy out possible competitors. That in turn generates more money.

Please explain in what way Apple is "a black hole that sucks everything around it".

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#316
post #244

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And literally billions of people don't have the money to spend on products like that but are able to use them because they can pay with their data, which has no cash value to them.

That doesn't really make any sense, right? How can those folks' data be worth very much if they don't have the money to pay a subscription fee for Google?

Aggregate with affluent people's data and it becomes valuable to advertisers who will never know the difference maybe

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#317
post #284

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How much is my desk worth on the market? However much somebody is willing to pay for it. As the article states, Apple's "value" as a company comes from, in part, the fact that it's a good investment. Some may argue that "the fundamentals" of the balance sheets and whatnot doesn't justify a $1T valuation, but they would be missing the intangible parts of the business which cause it to be worth exactly that much.

I'm not saying Apple isn't worth a $1T market cap. I'm just saying you wouldn't use market cap to calculate if a company were a sound long-term investment. You'd look at the fundamentals, then make a determination of what you think the long-term value of the business is, then you could look at the current market cap and determine if it is under- or overvalued. Breathless reporting on the market cap of companies is sl…

>Warren Buffet for some time said that he thought Apple was undervalued. I have no idea what he currently thinks, but it is probably still a reasonable value.

He currently owns ~5% of the company.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#318
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And literally billions of people don't have the money to spend on products like that but are able to use them because they can pay with their data, which has no cash value to them.

That doesn't really make any sense, right? How can those folks' data be worth very much if they don't have the money to pay a subscription fee for Google?

Rich folks are effectively subsidizing access for the poor. This is an advantage of Google's business model which is often overlooked by richer folks (who can easily afford subscription fees and Apple products).

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#319
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 5 to 1 has been the ratio in recent decades. I know this was true in 1990s when I studied this issue, and it could not have changed that much in 20 years. So 100 trillion would be my assumption.

I wonder how that breaks down into categories. Some quick googling reveals the following: ~30 trillion in residential real estate ~6 trillion in commercial real estate ~30 trillion in pubic company value Other big buckets I guess would be undeveloped land & private companies. ~100T sounds pretty plausible but I feel like I'm missing a big bucket or two. Not sure what though.

> I feel like I'm missing a big bucket or two. Not sure what though.

Considering how huge an employer the public sector is in the US, it stands to reason there's a huge value to in the government-as-an-enterprise, even if only considering cash value of assets, such as real estate (including natural resources!) and equipment (including military).

Of course, it might be very tough to calculate, if one includes every public entitity down the the local level and takes into account the debt of each entity.

Re: Apple becomes the first $1T company

#320
I have to say this is an impressive achievement for Apple. Good on them. Although I am sad that an insane amount of wealth is being accrued by the few. The top 6 US companies (all of them tech) are worth more than 5 trillion. That's almost 30% of US GDP.

In the last few years there's been an unprecedented rise in wealth yet as both a nation, and a part of a global civilization, we are moving back in some aspects. Even locally, housing is a shit show in the valley and trillion dollar valuations makes it worse for the service class.

Extreme poverty in US is on the rise, tons of people are dying of preventable health conditions. Healthcare and education are getting more expensive. Global warming and pollution aren't really turning back.

I guess the only mega billionaire I respect is Bill Gates because he's truly putting his money where it matters. Funding all sorts of moon shots like clean nuclear energy, wiping malaria e.t.c

I'm not saying its Apple's job to fix it. It really isn't anyone's job to fix the big problems. BUT with the insane amount of cash the big tech cos have, that's hellova resources that could be invested towards bringing the entire human civilization forward to a peaceful, clean, educated and a healthy planet where everyone has the basics and we're not dying because of very preventable issues.

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