What would happen if some of the largest companies in the U.S. ceased to exist? Well depends…
At the end of 2020 the top 10 companies by capitalization in the US were:
- Apple ($2.2 T)
- Microsoft ($1.6 T)
- Amazon ($1.6 T)
- Alphabet ($1.18 T)
- Facebook ($776 B)
- Tencent ($683 B)
- Tesla ($668 B)
- Alibaba Group ($628 B)
- Taiwan Semiconductor ($565 B)
- Berkshire Hathaway ($544 B)
At first glance, I can see that the top nine companies were all primarily tech companies.
What would happen if Apple disappeared. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iMac, iPad and iPhone, but I was a Windows computer user and Android user until just a few years ago. Apple is essentially a luxury brand. To say the US could not exist without Apple is like saying our transportation system would crumble if Mercedes Benz went out of Business.
Alphabet is the parent company of Google. Without Google we would take a serious step back in time and it would in my opinion cause issues.
Facebook does provide a great deal of benefit to small businesses that advertise there, but if it were to disappear overnight I don’t think there would be a catastrophic impact. There are alternatives. We might even be more productive. After Facebook first became popular, I had a student tell me with concern in her voice that she was addicted to social media.
Tesla is one of the hottest companies on the planet at the present time. However, it is primarily a carmaker among a plethora of other choices. One of the choices is hybrid cars and trucks which are more convenient than electric cars which need to be plugged into the electric grid. Hybrid cars were all the rage about 12 years ago, but now they are largely disdained.
The bottom line is that so many things we deem essential, make life more comfortable or convenient but are not truly necessities.