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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 produc

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.

jakarta 8y ago
Equity is not a measure of actual worth, it's a product of accounting conventions (which are increasingly incorrect) A company's value is the free cash flow available to owners from now to kingdom come discounted back to the present.
tomp 8y ago
> Most of it's products could be replaced in less than 5 years by a competitor. I wish this was true, but I think you’re severely overestimating Apple’s competitors... In the last 5 years, noone has even approached them, neither in hardware nor in software, even though the formula is painfully obvious (high quality hardware that keeps working/updating, and non-annoying easy-to-use software that’s friendly to powerusers).
propman 8y ago
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
ksec 8y ago
>This will be very controversial It is, and not only just on HN. Because Apple has $220B in revenue, not $50.
mentos 8y ago
I just finished Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull who was one of the founders of Pixar and current president. Highly recommend the book for anyone on HN. In the book Ed Catmull wrote that Steve Jobs would say regularly "as brilliant as Apple products were, eventually they all ended up in landfills." Gives you some pause to realize how quickly Apple's business could be relegated to the trashbin with no new products to pick up the baton.
captain_murdock 8y ago
On top of the holes in your financial argument, you've overlooked something in your competitor argument. A competitor could replace most of Apple's current products in 5 years, but where will Apple be in 5 years? They'll be five years ahead.
- wellboy 8y ago
  Replacing means that Apple doesn't innovate further. This always happens with big companies, Nokia, Ericsson, Yahoo, they are replaced by new companies. 5 years ahead for the big company means no progress. Apple is where it was 5 years ago in terms of innovation. They havent done anything new that was meaningful and only reap the benefits of what jobs invented 15y ago.

jakarta 8y ago

Equity is not a measure of actual worth, it's a product of accounting conventions (which are increasingly incorrect) A company's value is the free cash flow available to owners from now to kingdom come discounted back to the present.

tomp 8y ago

> Most of it's products could be replaced in less than 5 years by a competitor. I wish this was true, but I think you’re severely overestimating Apple’s competitors... In the last 5 years, noone has even approached them, neither in hardware nor in software, even though the formula is painfully obvious (high quality hardware that keeps working/updating, and non-annoying easy-to-use software that’s friendly to powerusers).

propman 8y ago

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

ksec 8y ago

>This will be very controversial It is, and not only just on HN. Because Apple has $220B in revenue, not $50.

mentos 8y ago

I just finished Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull who was one of the founders of Pixar and current president. Highly recommend the book for anyone on HN. In the book Ed Catmull wrote that Steve Jobs would say regularly "as brilliant as Apple products were, eventually they all ended up in landfills." Gives you some pause to realize how quickly Apple's business could be relegated to the trashbin with no new products to pick up the baton.

captain_murdock 8y ago

On top of the holes in your financial argument, you've overlooked something in your competitor argument. A competitor could replace most of Apple's current products in 5 years, but where will Apple be in 5 years? They'll be five years ahead.

wellboy 8y ago
Replacing means that Apple doesn't innovate further. This always happens with big companies, Nokia, Ericsson, Yahoo, they are replaced by new companies. 5 years ahead for the big company means no progress. Apple is where it was 5 years ago in terms of innovation. They havent done anything new that was meaningful and only reap the benefits of what jobs invented 15y ago.