At the beginning of the 20thcentury, when US society and lawmakers were alarmed about the growing power of “trusts” (large corporations), the two leading companies, Standard Oil and US Steel, had market capitalizations of around $1 billion, which in today’s currency would be worth about $32 billion. - ThreadSky

dacemoglumit.bsky.social • 92 days ago

At the beginning of the 20thcentury, when US society and lawmakers were alarmed about the growing power of “trusts” (large corporations), the two leading companies, Standard Oil and US Steel, had market capitalizations of around $1 billion, which in today’s currency would be worth about $32 billion.

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brooklynkid53bskys.bsky.social•88 days ago

Does one also have to have an additional factor of about 50x for size of GDP ?
GDP in 1900 was about 0.5 trillion, but I guess that is partly included in the inflation adjustment ?

but the stock market wasn't as developed back then, right ?

dacemoglumit.bsky.social•92 days ago

In comparison, Alphabet/Google’s and Amazon’s market valuations are hovering around $2.3 trillion, Apple’s is above $3.6 trillion, and Microsoft’s is close to $3 trillion.

dacemoglumit.bsky.social•92 days ago

Today’s tech giants also have revenues that are more than 100 times those of early 20th century trusts, including Standard Oil and US Steel.

dacemoglumit.bsky.social•92 days ago

Tech boosters might argue that this is because of the innovativeness of these companies or an inevitable consequence of network economies, generating winner-take-all dynamics for companies that acquire the biggest clientele or the largest amount of data about users. The truth is more nuanced.

dacemoglumit.bsky.social•92 days ago

Tech companies have been innovative. Nevertheless, there is recent evidence suggesting that they have done so by employing a large fraction of the supply of innovators and scientists...

dacemoglumit.bsky.social•92 days ago

...and once an innovator starts working for these large corporations, they are less innovative than they used to be in smaller companies: https://ufukakcigit.com/s/Akcigit_Goldschlag_Talent_NBER.pdf

dacemoglumit.bsky.social•92 days ago

Worse, tech giants have also grown their size partly by aggressively acquiring rivals: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/non-hsr-reported-acquisitions-select-technology-platforms-2010-2019-ftc-study/p201201technologyplatformstudy2021.pdf

a2t8.bsky.social•92 days ago

Not so much the issue as the economy was simpler and much smaller. The issue is more how much market and political power they had

patricktoche.bsky.social•22 days ago

If you compound at a rate of inflation+growth, something like 6 or 7 percent per year (instead of what looks like a 2.8% over 125 years), you get that $1 billion is "worth" somewhere between $1 and $6 trillion.

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