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Head into the ringer.

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Shows will provide instant reactions to Blockbuster releases insightful backstories on Canon and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors.

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Check out the ringer verse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today, I want to talk about the tech Giant’s, Apple, Microsoft, alphabet Amazon, Tesla and meta AKA Facebook.

0:38

These are the six, biggest tech companies in the world.

So what should we think of them?

Well, if you’re an investor, the one thing you think about these companies is, hey, they are really dragging down my portfolio right now.

In fact, all six stocks are down year-to-date somewhere between four percent apple and down 22% Tesla.

0:58

Meanwhile, if you’re an anti-tank kind of person.

The one thing, you know about these companies is that they’re bad.

And there’s no question that these companies have their ethical quandaries.

It’s Facebook’s content.

Moderation policy or Tesla, and Amazon’s relationship with labor, apple and China.

1:14

But personally, I don’t like to Define these companies in exclusive binaries up or down.

Good or bad above all.

I just find them fascinating, like, yes, Amazon has anti-union practices that I find extremely sketchy, but it’s also provided just about the most critical service of any company.

1:32

I can think of during the pandemic.

When I needed groceries, when I needed toilet paper, when I need to wrap it.

A test Amazon was there.

And yes, as we’ve talked about on this podcast, Elon Musk can be a wackadoodle online.

But he’s also probably single-handedly responsible for pulling forward the electric future for cars in the United States by at least several years.

1:52

Amazon and Tesla are complicated.

And complicated is interesting.

So for today’s episode.

I wanted to see the forest behind the burning falling tree.

That is January’s plunging stock market.

I wanted To help me identify the most interesting and essential thing about six of the most interesting and essential companies in the world.

2:15

And to do that.

We have Shira over day.

She writes the on Tech newsletter for the New York Times.

And in today’s episode, we hit each of the six.

Biggest tech companies in the world in reverse order, meta Tesla Amazon, alphabet, Microsoft, and right there.

2:32

At the Top Apple.

I’m Derek Thompson.

This is playing.

English.

3:00

She-Ra over day.

Welcome to the podcast.

Derek.

Thank you.

It’s so wonderful to be here.

So, Shira what I wanted to do with you is to count down these six largest tech companies in America from 6 to 1 and I wanted to chat with you about what we consider the single.

Most interesting thing about each of these companies and for my own purposes because I wanted to make sure That I was saying something different about each company.

3:24

I tried to boil down my analysis of each company down to a single word.

So that is a gimmick and if you disagree with any of these words, you should feel very very free to tell me either that the gimmick is stupid or that the words themselves are off base.

3:40

So I am 100% Pro.

The Derek Thompson shorthand.

We are pro gimmick here, in plain English.

Thank you very, very much.

You are pre-screened to give that answer here.

So, thank you.

We’re gonna start with number six, which is meta AKA Facebook.

My one word for meta is anxiety.

3:57

I don’t think any other company in America has such a gap between their corporate might and their cultural anxiety.

Like, this is a eight hundred billion dollar company with a massive incredible online advertising business, but when we peek into Facebook itself, the company always feels.

4:18

So like Rife with a Next and in particular, you’ve written about their anxiety over losing young people.

And why you think that’s such a key part of understanding, the, the psychology of this firm.

Why is Facebook?

4:33

So obsessed with young people?

It’s fast like so in a way Facebook or meta and I’m just going to call them Facebook for Simplicity sake good.

It kind of encapsulates.

This duality of all of the tech Giants at this moment in time that they’re both.

So powerful and Rich and potentially, you know, at least the way they look, they seem like permanent empires in a way that maybe, no corporate Titans have ever been in history of the United States.

5:02

And at the same time, you can see vulnerability everywhere and whether that’s internal vulnerability or external and the form of sort of Regulation or public hatred, or this sort of cultural tension about the rich and Powerful.

5:19

If I start with Facebook, you rape that almost for the entire history of Facebook, as a public company.

It has been clear that this company has like changed.

The way that we interact with one another and the ways that we get information and it is maybe the best business model ever created on the internet with the possible exception of Google, but the things that you hear from Facebook, from inside, Facebook is just this anxiety. 82, use your word, to steal your word, about losing relevance with young people.

5:54

And again, that has been true since the very beginning of Facebook, that the big anxiety around Facebook’s IPO was about questions.

Like, okay.

Are they, my space?

Meaning, are they hot thing that will fade or will?

6:09

They remain?

Will they stay relevant on smartphones?

Will they be able to make money?

As more people use Facebook on smartphones and to Facebook’s credit?

Either through acquisition or Savvy or brute force or whatever you want to call it.

It has remained a relevant internet superpower for 10 years, which is a hard thing to do.

6:31

It’s interesting to me because Facebook changing its name to Metta.

It’s hard to think of a company, this powerful and this successful announcing that they’re changing their entire corporate identity to a thing that doesn’t exist yet.

Right?

Like, imagine Steve.

6:48

Saying, in 2002 five years before the iPhone debuted.

Hey, everyone apple is changing.

Its name to a smartphone.

People.

Like what’s a smartphone?

He’s like.

Well, it’s the next desktop and we don’t really it doesn’t really exist yet, and we haven’t really made one yet, but trust me, it’s going to be huge and we’re going to build it.

7:04

Like apple didn’t do that.

It just quietly built the actual iPhone, kept the name.

Apple released the iPhone and as we’re going to talk about in like 20 minutes, just became the iPhone company.

Like that’s what normal companies do when they don’t have branding catastrophe.

He’s and I was asking some people online for some examples of what Facebook is doing which is being an incredibly successful.

7:23

As I said company.

That also feels this deep anxiety to Rebrand itself for the world and also to invest behind that rebranding.

The best example that I got and I would love to know what you think about.

Whether you think this matches, your impression of Facebook is done sknow nuts.

7:39

Would have gas, which is a Danish multinational power company.

Bear with me in 2017 and the company decided to phase out its use of coal for power generation.

So it’s sold off its oil and gas business announced its intention to transition entirely to renewable energy and renamed the company or two stud.

7:56

And it’s now the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power.

And so someone gave me this example and I was like, wait, Facebook is like an oil and gas company of the information space trying to tell the world is going to become the number one producer of solar energy or wind turbines, right?

8:12

It’s like embarrassed in a way by the way that its current success is Related to cultural reputation and is trying to get ahead of that by picking a point in the future, where it’s going to invent this new business and saying, hey just call us.

That is that kind of like what you see happening on the ground where you’re really, you’re really testing my knowledge of data.

8:32

Sure.

Yeah.

I have no idea if I was gonna happen that right.

I was just trying to give a kind of Danish, man, to whatever it is.

You have to go in a Danish power companies, shows you how unusual this is.

Yes, and I think the one place where that comparison made Phrase a little bit is that wind and other kinds of green energy actually exist today?

8:54

Yes, and the metaverse is more or less a theoretical concept right now with a lot of jargon and investor hype around it.

But look I in a way a part of me respects, what Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are trying to do, they know the sort of classic Clayton, Christensen innovators, dilemma of companies that become really successful in one area and it impedes, their ability to figure out the next big thing that they are handcuffed by success.

9:28

The same way as, to use the Energy company analogy.

That, if you’re the biggest fossil fuel company in the world, it is extremely difficult to decide.

You know, what, we don’t think fossil fuels are the future will become a.

In the metal thing is almost like will become a company that makes energy from garbage right sir.

9:48

Unproven technology and in.

Sorry, maybe that is a proven technology.

I think it’s a great point and it should be said that, especially if some of the later companies, we’re going to talk about like apple and Microsoft, and alphabet meta is still run by the person who founded the company.

10:05

And if you’re doing this sort of Harvard Business, school’s study of Facebook and excuse me, meta, and it turns out to be a success, you’re going to look back and say, this is why Founders need to stay on as Chief Executives because it is easier for them.

To disrupt themselves than it is.

10:20

Sometimes potentially for a chief executive to come in and disrupt the company that they’re acquiring from the founder.

So I agree.

Mark is leather, love him or hate him.

This is a bold and bizarre frankly strategy that will see if it pays off.

10:40

All right, let’s go to number five.

Number five is Tesla and my one word for Tesla is future.

This is a company that is being Extraordinarily valued as a multiple of its earnings and its Revenue because of what people think, the future of the electric vehicle Market would look like.

10:57

And if you want to see this potential future of the American EV market, look at Norway, you wrote an article about Norway’s electric vehicle market last year. 2021 in Norway, only 8% of new cars.

11:14

Ran purely on conventional gas or diesel, only 8% % two-thirds of new cars.

Sold in Norway last.

Year, were electric that compares to 3% in the US.

How did this happen?

How did Norway become the global capital for electric vehicles?

11:32

It’s a really fascinating story.

Because when I saw that statistic and I mean, I knew directionally that Norway is the biggest market for electric vehicles, at least by market share, but that number right, that the conventional car is basically an Your species in Norway, and the answer is basically, normally has some unique setup in terms of, you know, taxes on cars and gasoline purchases are extremely high, but they also made some really Savvy decisions that kind of started this flywheel right to sort of use that Amazon term of success, but getting more success.

12:13

So, the Practical answer is Norway, basically.

We cut taxes, 20 on new purchases of electric cars, and car taxes are very high in Norway.

They also gave benefits to EV drivers things, like they could skip some tolls, they could get some parking for free in Municipal settings.

12:34

You could drive on on sort of HOV lanes, that kind of thing.

So it made electric cars much more appealing to new car owners and it was really smart that kind.

They normally decided just to sort of make As simple as possible, let’s focus on new cars on getting as many people who are buying new cars to think about an Eevee at the top of their list of potential purchases.

13:00

And let’s not worry right now about all these understandable questions.

That also may get in the way of of of new invention whether that’s well, what we do about cars on the road and what do we do about rural areas?

And what do we do about?

13:16

Is this a tax break for the wealthiest?

Kathy, you know, all these things that are again, understandable concerns, but that also were sort of an impediment to just sort of moving faster.

And then once some of those systems were in place more car companies including Tesla and Chinese, automakers and European conventional car makers, they started to make more appealing electric vehicle options.

13:40

That’s sold in Norway.

And again the the end result is that in relatively short order 56, Many years, they are now, you know, what?

A place where, at least for new cars, the conventional gasoline, powered car is just sort of a tiny minority of sales.

13:59

Yeah, it’s really amazing.

You talking at the Bezos fly.

We all were growth begets growth, and this tiny little Trend ends up becoming this.

This this huge wave.

You’re clearly seeing that in Norway.

What I Look to whether the u.s.

Can learn from Norway, Norway has got its subsidies.

It’s got its tax benefits.

We also have some subsidies and tax benefits for electric car purchases.

14:17

What seems Really important that you point out, is that Norway has really high gas taxes.

And if you can cut to end, that might help drive people, no pun intended toward electric cars because there’s this huge, Delta between the price of gas in the price of electricity.

The thing that’s happening in the u.s., I’m so interested by and and that, that makes me think that even though Tesla is just at a ridiculous stock value right now given where its revenue and profits are maybe it’s not so crazy to think of them as a top five top six tech company.

14:47

I So if you’re a football fan or if you’re watching a lot of TV these days, but I’m a huge NFL fan and I’ve been watching the games from this weekend.

The previous playoff weekends judging from television ads alone.

The entire US Auto industry is already electric like literally every single car advertisement is electric this electric bad hybrid.

15:07

Here’s a joke about plugins like V’s.

It’s fascinating account for just three percent of new passenger vehicle vehicle purchases in the US, but 100% Out of all the auto messaging in commercials and that just tells me that you know, you have a lot of people in the advertising commercial spaces looking at Tesla’s stock price and looking at Norway and seeing holy moly.

15:33

We need to transition as fast as possible and essentially disrupt ourselves and make sure that that all these, you know gas and Diesel powered cars that we’ve been selling like hotcakes last few years.

We essentially move away from those markets in the next.

Did anything else that you see with Tesla that fascinates you?

15:51

Well, I think to your point about seeing all the marketing from traditional car makers.

We talked a lot about the destructive effects of bubbles.

But this is one potential beneficial impact of a bubble.

There is definitely a bubble right now investment bubble in electric vehicles, where you have companies that have basically almost never sold any electric vehicles that are valued at the like many many billions of dollars.

16:13

But what that does do is that helps encourage car makers.

And to sort of say, okay, we’re doing that two and two, make it real, you know, last year, when General Motors said we’re going to stop making conventional gas-powered cars.

That was at least in part because investors love that, right, you know, it’s that kind of hype and bubble that is I mean, it will be destructive and we’ll probably end unhappily.

16:41

But in the meantime, it is producing the sort of energy and enthusiasm and reality around electric cars.

I totally agree with that.

Kevin ruse has been on this podcast.

He made the really interesting point that love Elon Musk or hate him.

And we’re not going to fully get into that analysis, but he is clearly changed.

17:00

The cultural coating of electric vehicles, that 10 or 15 years ago, electric vehicles were for crunchy granola types who wore their Birkenstocks and voted Lefty and loved the green party and had their stickers on their backpacks.

17:17

And he’s totally Totally changed the vibe of electric such that you now have rhydian.

The electric pickup car, come pick up truck manufacturer that’s been valued at tens of billions of dollars before they barely even sold a single product.

You’ve got Ford rushing in to build electric F-150s, and they can barely sell them fast enough.

17:36

It’s really astonishing how quickly the sort of political valence of electric vehicles has changed in the US and considering how much I think something like, you know, What is it two thirds of, of emissions.

Come from transportation to the US?

17:52

It’s quite a Mitzvah to be able to transition that to Electric.

Let’s go to number four on the list.

Number four is Amazon.

My one word for Amazon is American, most of the companies on this list are truly International companies.

18:08

They make an enormous amount of money outside.

The US Amazon is different last quarter.

Amazon made 65.

Ian dollars in North American Revenue compared to only twenty nine billion dollars in International Revenue.

18:25

That is really bizarrely, American very bizarrely focused on North America for a tech company in this list Shira.

You are the one who pointed this out to me.

Tell me a little bit about the degree to, which Amazon’s revenue is significantly more constrained to a few countries than other names on this list yet, sir, strange right away instead of From the vantage point of view.

18:49

And the another Americans, we feel like Amazon to sort of ubiquitous an all-powerful, but to your point, most of America’s technology Giants are Global, their products are popular globally.

They make, you know, significant Revenue, glow outside the United States at Amazon about 90% of their revenue comes from four countries, the US Britain, Japan and Germany.

19:14

Give me that one more time and that’s 90 percent 90.

Percent of Amazon’s revenue, give or take.

And look some of that is their cloud computing operation.

But even Amazon’s e-commerce operation, right?

It is really outside of those four countries.

19:30

Not the Juggernaut that we’ve come to expect in the United States and partly because Amazon faces.

Real domestic competition in places like Latin America and South Korea from a company called coupon in in parts of Africa.

19:47

In the if you go around the globe, there are e-commerce Juggernaut Juggernauts that are not named Amazon.

It’s so interesting because Amazon is the everything store but it’s not the everything store everywhere.

China has its own quote unquote, Amazon.

20:05

It’s called Ali.

Baba, Brazil has its own France, has its own different countries, have their own e-commerce Giants.

And it’s interesting here to compare Amazon to the other big tech companies on this list.

Because It’s so much harder to scale Commerce globally than it is to scale information.

20:23

Right?

A video that I make can easily be seen in Canada, on YouTube.

Tick-Tock that some French teenager makes can easily be watched in Los Angeles.

But if you’re talking about delivering socks, right?

You need a local Warehouse that has the socks.

20:40

You need a truck that drives from that local Warehouse with the socks.

You need a person to walk out of that truck and drop off the socks at a doorstep that Scale globally, just with bits.

You need to hire those people.

And by those trucks and as a result, it’s kind of interesting that the e-commerce is so much harder to scale globally, potentially, then a lot of the other products that these tech companies have gone into within the u.s., However, it should be said, Amazon is dominating in categories that nobody thought I could dominate in.

21:08

I just saw a statistic that said that Amazon sells twelve percent of American Apparel.

That means one out of every nine or one out of every eight.

Chuckles of clothing bought in the u.s.

Is now bought from Amazon.

That is crazy.

Yeah, and I’m also old enough to remember that all of the categories that people said, oh, people will never buy X online.

21:29

Why people never buy car parts.

People will never buy Sporting Goods.

People never buy clothes, people, never buy cars, people will never buy groceries.

And it turns out people, if it’s convenient enough, people will pretty much buy anything online.

Number three on this list is alphabet aka the holding company that includes Google.

21:51

My one word for alphabet is longevity.

I have is Google advertising Revenue ever going to stop growing at this ridiculous?

Tremendous place.

I feel like there’s been so many rounds of when will search advertising Revenue Peak.

22:07

When will Google Peak has Google peaked yet?

Google’s just puked and it just keeps growing.

Sure.

How long do you think this Empire?

Last.

I’m reluctant to say because you’re right similar to Facebook, people have been saying for a very long time about Google.

22:25

Well, this can’t possibly last as I think I mentioned to you that when when smartphones start for started to become prevalent many people, many smart even tech people, predicted, that that might be the end for Google because people would search less if they knew.

22:42

Well, if I need to find Well, airline tickets to Hawaii.

I’ll go to the Travelocity app for, I need to shop.

I’ll go to the Amazon app, right?

That apps will replace search.

And you know that did happen for the most part 2 by 2, which is sort of the big was, and is the big search engine in China, but it didn’t happen to Google.

23:04

And again, I think Google like Facebook has been far more resilient than a lot of people thought.

Part of it is they kept finding new places to extend their advertising Empire.

YouTube, maybe being the most prominent example.

And also, I mean, Google is really good at indexing.

23:24

The world’s information all the kinds of information and then that includes Snell.

Things like, you know, mapping and local services and YouTube and other kinds of videos.

And again, if you listen to YouTube to the critics of Google, they’ll say well this is a company that is sort of tilted the game to its advantage.

23:45

Integers, right?

That that’s all old.

The, the underpinnings of antitrust arguments about Google and other big tech companies is basically the kind of cheat to win, right?

That if you’re successful, you can park the, the information that you control at the top of search results.

24:04

You can kind of rig internet, auctions as Google’s alleged to do and some of them lawsuits you can rig internet auctions so that Google makes money no matter what So that’s the question about something like Google is, is their longevity due to being really good at what they do or because they’re cheating.

24:23

I’m really glad you said that because I don’t want this to be.

Oh, look how wonderful and magnificent.

These companies are know, Google has been sued for anti-competitive practices.

Amazon has been sued for anti-competitive practices, Microsoft, which we’re going to talk about right now, was that only sued for anti-competitive practices, United States versus Microsoft Corporation?

24:45

In DC Circuit Court, 2001, the u.s.

Won a law case.

Against Microsoft accusing it of illegally using its Monopoly power in the PC market.

These companies are extremely powerful and they often use their power not for good.

25:01

So speaking of Microsoft, maybe not the introduction that company wants me to give them.

Microsoft.

My word for them is underrated Microsoft is so interesting because it’s profoundly unsexy yet ludicrously profitable.

It’s the second biggest.

In the world at times in the last few years.

25:18

It’s been more valuable than Apple.

It has in several times in its history, bend the most valuable company nominally in the history of Commerce, but nobody talks about Microsoft.

No one’s like hey, you know how to get some cheap clicks on?

The Internet is throw Microsoft in a headline.

25:33

You know what?

I had to get some cheap podcast listens.

Let’s do a hole for our segment on Microsoft.

It’s just really interesting.

The gap between the cultural sexiness of this company and its You so Shira.

What does Microsoft do?

25:50

Look what they what they do fundamentally and this is one reason why they’re profoundly unsexy is they make software for businesses and that immediately puts people to sleep, but for all the talk about, you know, Xbox and Linkedin, or they just bought right Activision.

26:11

This large video game company.

Fundamentally Microsoft.

Pretty boring but Essential Software to businesses.

Whether it’s, you know, Windows, computer licenses or Excel spreadsheet software or server software, or increasingly Cloud software to help businesses.

26:30

Digitized, what they do databases chat apps, but I remember an investor years, an investor in software companies years ago, called them garbage collector businesses, that it is basic point was that?

Nobody will ever Be excited about garbage collection, but everybody in the world needs to have garbage collected and that can be a really lucrative business.

26:53

I want to ask you about their, their acquisition of Activision.

This is the gaming company that makes World of Warcraft, Diablo Call of Duty.

I mean, on the one hand, I think if you have a simplistic and sort of probably unintelligent read of Microsoft, your like, this is a productivity company.

27:10

Their job is to empower employees to be more productive.

Why are they also investing in video games?

But the truth is that they already have LinkedIn.

They already have Xbox their diversifying across a couple different business categories.

And one category.

They seem to want to grow.

27:26

A lot is their gaming category.

What are they doing in gaming right now?

And I mean, I have to use the word.

I’m sorry, but are they talking about this acquisition of Activision?

27:41

Akin to the construction of a metaverse?

Strategy for Microsoft.

Well, they do.

They didn’t use that word because it is mandatory to use the word metal verse.

It gets you a few pennies of stock price increase, but, you know, fundamentally at least in the short term.

27:59

It’s about consolidating video games, which maybe is again, not super sexy, but they own the Xbox video game console and you can imagine the sort of vertically integrated Microsoft video game Empire where they have these consoles that are very Popular video gaming is one of the most lucrative entertainment Industries in the world.

28:21

Much more lucrative than the movie business, for example, so you have you owned the Xbox console and you own a bunch of exclusive video games must have video games through this console.

So you become something like Netflix, if Netflix also owned Roku, right?

28:38

They have the system through which, you play video games, and a bunch of must have video game titles and charge a subscription to To access those on a monthly basis so you can see the value in that.

Even if it doesn’t become, you know, again, but the metaverse word, right?

28:55

And this actually juxtaposes very nicely with number one on our list, which is Apple.

My number one word, for apple is focus.

So, let’s compare with Microsoft Microsoft has Windows.

They have operating systems.

29:11

They also have LinkedIn.

They also have Xbox.

They also have video game.

They also have cloud services.

They’re in a, they have their fingers in a bunch of different Revenue pots.

Now compare that with apple apple makes computers.

29:28

They make computers for your desk and they make computers for your pocket.

That’s what they do.

They make computers and then they sell stuff around computers whether it’s services or ancillary products like the like the are pods that I have in my ears and that is the company and It is remarkable the degree to, which if you look at their earnings reports, this is a company that basically makes iPhones and a few Mac computers in the side.

29:56

Do you think that this focus is key to the company’s success in the future?

Or do you think that no company at the three trillion dollar level can really sustain that kind of growth unless they grow into different products?

30:15

Whether it’s Television or a car.

I think that’s the fundamental question of apple.

And I wrote a column, I think six years ago, my last job that basically called the top for apple.

But basically said, look, the iPhone is the sun around which Apple, Apple’s ecosystem, orbits, and smartphone growth, even then had basically run out of room and that is true much more true in 2022 than it wasn’t 2015, or 16 when I wrote them smartphones smartphones worth is basically sold globally.

30:50

And yet Apple has figured out a way to keep growing by selling the same computer, to the same people who already owned one and also a bunch of add-on services and and Hardware on top of that, right?

So you Apple has talked a lot at talked, a big game about diversifying about.

31:10

We’re not just the iPhone company anymore.

We also so, like apps and are pogs.

Home ponds and Max, but the fact is that, almost everything that Apple sells is sold to somebody as an add-on to an iPhone right solution.

Might be headphones or iCloud subscriptions or anything that you buy through your iPhone for which Apple gets a 30% cut or 15% cut and that might even extend to things like the iPad or the Mac computer, right?

31:41

This is a company that has built a three trillion dollar Empire not on computers, but On a computer on the iPhone.

And at a time, when I would have thought that game is played out.

Apple has turned that focus into a strength rather than a weakness.

31:58

So if you ask me, can they keep doing that into the future?

I really, I don’t know the answer.

I would have said no, except that Apple’s been doing it for six years.

Six years longer than I thought they could write jumping into their last 10 Q There.

32:15

Last financial statement in 2021 Apple made 365 billion dollars that’s fucking crazy. 191 billion dollars came from the iPhone.

So already you have myth 55 ish percent of their revenue comes just in the iPhone, but like you said, you can’t stop there.

32:38

Wearables home and accessories, is another forty billion dollars.

A lot of that is stuff you buy for your iPhone, whether it’s a dongle or are pot.

Odds services and other 70 billion.

Well, a lot of those services are things that people buy because they need to get more value out of the iPhone that they already own.

32:54

Then you get into stuff like that, Mac 35 billion dollars, the iPad another 30 billion dollars.

A lot of people likely stick with their MacBook Air or stick with the iPad in part, because it pairs with the iPhone.

So I’m not suggesting that this company would be worth like, zero dollars if Steve Jobs never invented the iPhone in 2007.

33:13

Obviously, the company was very successful and it’s Yes, you decades.

But as you’re saying it really is astonishing the degree to which perfect metaphor that you employed.

The iPhone is the sun around which revolves this three trillion dollars folder system.

I want to do another little rant on Apple because juxtaposing it to the other companies, in this Pantheon of six months, powerful tech companies in the world, apple is so different.

33:39

Like Facebook meta has a youth problem.

Does Apple know the opposite 88% and if you st and surveyed in the last team report said they already had an iPhone and 90% of their next phone would be an iPhone notine problem here.

How about diversity?

33:55

Microsoft alphabet Amazon meta?

They all do a bunch of different things or want to do a bunch of different things.

As she said, apples, a phone company and it makes some stuff around the phone Tesla.

Their valuation is all about the future.

Apple’s valuation isn’t about the future.

It’s about the fact they sell an extraordinarily profitable.

34:13

Little plate of glass that we Need to have in our pockets finally Amazon and I’m so glad you told me this is one of the most interesting things I learned from you, highly domestic company.

An overwhelming amount of its Revenue comes from North America with apple.

34:29

I’m scrolling right down to their page.

Net sales by reportable segments America versus Europe, only 23 percent of their revenue comes from the Americas.

This is a global global country.

So it’s just remarkable the degree to which a political Isn’t just number one on this list, but it’s really unique as a tech company.

34:50

Compared to its peers, metis are really fascinating company.

And I will just say that I do think Al are at least, some portion of apples value.

He’s tied to the Future.

So I think there is an expectation.

Well at what Apple did to the iPhone.

It can also do with, you know, the sort of eyeglass internet-connected eyeglasses or whatever.

35:08

The next potential Computing.

Interface is going to be what Apple did to the iPhone.

Maybe you can also do that with Electric and driverless cars, right?

So these are all projects that apple is working on secretly in B, little Little Hardware labs.

And and I do think there is an expectation that because Apple has been so successful and many points of its history of popularizing Technologies and taking new technologies and making them mainstream that he can do that two computers for your face.

35:40

It can do that too electric and driverless cars, I think.

I’m not so sure those things play to Apples strengths particularly cars, but we’ll see.

Again.

I’ve been wrong about Apple before, and I’m reluctant to be wrong about them again.

Yep, just to clean up a mistake that I just made because we believe in accountability here and plain English.

35:59

I said, 23 percent of apples.

Revenue comes from the Americas.

That is wrong.

It is 41%.

Nonetheless.

That means that 59% of apples Revenue comes from outside of North and South America.

That is a hugely international business and shirking, this One.

36:16

I’ll just say one more thing to Apples credit.

They are the only or the one large American technology company that has been wildly successful in China.

They alone.

That’s a great point.

Last question for you.

You just walk through the six, biggest tech companies in America.

36:33

I would love to know what you think is the most interesting tech company here in the u.s.

North America’s around the world.

Most interesting tech company that we have not talked about today.

I think the sexy answer would be B dance, which is the Chinese company that owns Tick-Tock, but I’m actually going to go for an underdog and say Shopify, which is a Canadian company that makes software for small businesses to kind of set up their own websites.

37:03

Their own e-commerce operations to do things like Market on Facebook and other places online at kind of the, the click of a button, sure.

What’s the most interesting thing for listeners?

Take away about Shopify.

So there’s a whole bunch of companies and that includes Facebook and Google and Uber and maybe Amazon to a certain extent that are all making a very similar pitch, which is they’re the ones that are going to help small businesses.

37:31

The the proverbial shop around the corner, become the digitized storefront of the 21st century.

They’re the ones that are going to help your local cheese shop or local toy store, basically.

Ali Outfox Amazon, be the local Amazon of toys and cheese.

37:51

And Shopify is actually doing that that they are providing.

All of these small businesses, the sort of the EasyWeb storefront and some cases the sort of logistics behind the scenes Logistics and shipping might the marketing tools to actually be the kind of local Amazon, where they can actually both sell their products to people online and me.

38:15

Cases have it delivered to people’s homes powered by Shopify software.

And that’s a really powerful force potentially for our local economies to keep them thriving.

And also, frankly.

It is a huge potential Revenue opportunity for any company that kind of figures out how to do Amazon for local.

38:38

That’s a lovely place to land.

Because you know, these companies today met a Tesla Amazon.

These are goliaths.

These are A huge, huge behemoths of come of a company but it’s nice to know that there is still David’s but it can make billions and billions of dollars competing against them because you roll back, the clock, far enough and all these companies were David’s ones, you know, if it was Facebook, can they beat Myspace Tesla?

39:01

Can they beat Ford Amazon?

Can they be Walmart?

So it’s nice to know that the, the next crop, the next generation of tech Elias are still growing and that the shade cast by these.

Large companies isn’t It’s so vast that it’s suffocating the growth in them at the bottom of the forest.

39:21

Anyway, sure.

I thank you so so much for talking me through these companies today, and we’ll have you back in the pot very soon.

Thank you, Derek.

Planning this with Derek Thompson is produced by Devon.

Manzi.

Thank you so much for listening this show.

If you like us, follow us on Spotify rate and review.

39:37

On Apple podcast.

We will be back with our second episode this week.

On Friday.

We will see you then.