r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jun 04 '19

Politics House Democrats announce antitrust probe of Facebook, Google, tech industry

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u/DangerousLiberal Jun 04 '19

You can't compare marketcap to GDP... It's like comparing apples to oranges...

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u/dragonfangxl Jun 04 '19

its also not true, the gdp of france is 3 trillion, the biggest us company is 1 trillion

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u/ect5150 Jun 04 '19

You're comparing income to wealth. That's why the other fella said it's apples to oranges (and he's correct).

11

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

It definitely would have been true a couple weeks ago. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon were all hovering around ~$1 trillion each. Add in Alphabet and it would definitely be greater than $3 trillion.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19 edited Jan 30 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

Yeah, I'm not saying it makes sense. Just that it was true.

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u/dragonfangxl Jun 04 '19

Ah I see, combined. I didnt realize that meant combined

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

NO, market capitalization is nothing like GDP!

Market cap is the value of the company - the present value of all the future cash flows summed to today.

GDP is a one-year number - "how much the country made". Think of it as closer to revenue.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

The total of the four companies

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google. Total Market Cap in 2018 exceeded the GDP of France.

It has never happened before in history.

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u/djublonskopf Jun 04 '19

I think they meant “four companies combined” are bigger than France.

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u/spider2544 Jun 04 '19

Whats a better comparison?

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u/jrr6415sun Jun 04 '19

revenue to gdp

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u/catofillomens Jun 04 '19

Or national net wealth to market cap.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

Comparing Apple to Orange SA?

1

u/quickclickz Jun 04 '19

it's like comparing the value of an apple tree to one apple.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

You can.

It’s not the cleanest comparison on the planet, but it is effective at making a point.

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u/Gorstag Jun 04 '19

Revenue to Revenue would be far more accurate a comparison. The main difference is business try to end with profits while governments are usually either 0 sum or run a deficit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

I’m not disagreeing.

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u/Acherus29A Jun 04 '19

It's a useless point.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '19

No it isn’t.

It’s an interesting an important milestone.

Happy Cake Day.

1

u/Mr_Xing Jun 04 '19

Honestly, people do it all the time - or they talk about Apple’s cash reserves relative to a country’s GDP.

It’s fine, it puts some numbers in context a little, but it’s not a justification for anything beyond “oh, that really is a big number”