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It's useful to keep these numbers in perspective in all the excitement. Browse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue http://en.wikipedia.org
by yaakov34 15y ago
It's useful to keep these numbers in perspective in all the excitement. Browse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue and convince yourself that we're not quite living in a virtual world yet. The list is dominated by giant oil companies, with Exxon and Shell with $370 billion in annual revenues a piece (that's more than the GDP of all but around 25 nations). Manufacturing is also pretty well represented (Toyota: $240 billion in revenue in 2010). On the other hand, Apple now apparently outsells Boeing. That's pretty impressive.
- rafaelc 15y agoLook at the margins when comparing Google vs. oil companies. That paints an entirely different picture.
- yaakov34 15y agoThe picture I was looking at is weight in the economy. We - I guess I am making some assumptions about the audience here - sometimes get so caught up in the kinds of things that are important to us, that we forget that this is not the whole world. I mean, Google+ vs. Facebook is fascinating, but this is probably not the most momentous conflict that history will record for the early 21st century. And speaking of profit, apparently Exxon made $11 billion last quarter - more than the revenue number we're talking about here. Yeah, the margin is lower, but...
- tomjen3 15y agoIf the margin is lower, then you get more for investing money in Google. Margins matter.
- 6ren 15y agoBTW Apple is third by market cap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_capitalization#2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_...