2017-10-03

Big Tech Perfect Storm: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, & Google (video)

Big Tech's Perfect Storm

Big Tech Perfect Storm: Apple $AAPL, Amazon $AMZN, Facebook $FB, Google $GOOG $GOOGL - L2inc.com video published Sep 28, 2017, featuring Scott Galloway on Digital Winners and Losers:
 "Society treats Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google as a universal good. But how do we pay our soldiers, firefighters, and teachers if a firm can ascend to $468 billion in value -- fifth in the world -- without paying any meaningful corporate taxes?" 
Slides:
Sources:
(0:38) L2 Analysis of Amazon 10Ks and Walmart Annual Reports.
(0:48) “Amazon Market Cap History (AMZN),” macrotrends, September 2017. http://bit.ly/2xBBvls
(0:48) YCharts, September 2017. http://bit.ly/2uWnj2y (0:59) “Amazon Market Cap History (AMZN),” macrotrends, September 2017. http://bit.ly/2xBBvls
(1:01) “Largest Companies by Market Cap Today,” Dogs of the Dow, September 2017. http://bit.ly/2cziOG2
(2:26) “The Fortune 500’s 10 Most Profitable Companies,” Fortune, June 2017. http://for.tn/2sD2CaG
(3:09) StatCounter Global Stats, August 2017.
(3:14) Alphabet's 2016 10-K Filing and Zenith.
(3:33) “Google’s EU Fine Is a Small Price to Pay for Scale,” The Wall Street Journal. June 2017. http://on.wsj.com/2wakRWL

Song -  MISSIO - Bottom Of The Deep Blue Sea

YouTube.com auto-generated transcript:
00:01  we talk a lot about the four and the
00:03  preferred treatment they receive Apple
00:06  Amazon Facebook and Google by Wall
00:09  Street our government and our society we
00:12  engage in a gross idolatry of innovators
00:14  that has reached a tipping point the
00:16  perfect storm is growing around the
00:18  floor and society is beginning to
00:20  regurgitate on the notion that these
00:22  firms are at Universal good and some
00:24  their perceptions or their images are
00:26  moving from chicken salad to chicken
00:29  s_it it appears that we have had enough
00:32  some stats Amazon since 2008 Walmart has
00:36  paid sixty four billion dollars in
00:37  corporate income tax well amazon has
00:39  paid 1.4 billion this despite the fact
00:42  that in the last 24 months amazon has
00:46  added the entire market capitalization
00:48  of wal-mart to its value the most
00:51  uncomfortable question in business and
00:53  my view is how do we pay our soldiers
00:55  firefighters and teachers if a firm can
00:58  ascend to four hundred and sixty billion
00:59  dollars in value fifth most in the world
01:02  without paying any meaningful corporate
01:04  taxes and now mayors are tripping over
01:07  each other throwing tax breaks and
01:09  abatements to get Amazon to open their
01:11  second headquarters in their city every
01:14  mayor wants to detonate a prosperity
01:16  bomb in the city square however what's
01:18  more likely to happen is an Olympic like
01:21  bidding intoxication where there's a lot
01:23  of high-fives and celebration for 12
01:25  months followed by years of economic
01:27  analysis and hangover that this was a
01:30  bad deal what should Amazon do they
01:34  should starts their hat white become a
01:35  better citizen pick Detroit and
01:38  revitalized the Metro and invest in
01:40  education and Riaan gauging and re
01:43  employing some of the engineers laid off
01:45  in the auto industry Apple we have our
01:48  religion our new Jesus Christ has Steve
01:50  Jobs the iPhone X should be called the
01:53  iPhone cross we've decided the iPhone is
01:55  holier than any other object someone
01:58  gets thrown into a trunk
01:59  you can get a court order to search that
02:00  car but don't try and search the iPhone
02:03  that's holier at Apple's recent product
02:06  unveiled the company's head of retail
02:07  Angela Aaron said the company no longer
02:09  refers to its shops as stores we call
02:12  them towns
02:14  that's like calling the playground at
02:17  Grace Church that wanted to charge my
02:18  kid 48 thousand dollars a year to play
02:21  with blocks
02:22  Central Park what bullshit this company
02:25  is the most profitable firm in the world
02:26  and they deserve that but they have
02:28  decided that privacy laws no longer
02:30  apply to them
02:32  Facebook arguably the most successful
02:34  media company of the last 20 years has
02:37  simply put become Putin's bitch they
02:40  need to overcorrect and take
02:41  responsibility and thus far the response
02:43  has been underwhelming with the social
02:45  platform citing concerns about
02:46  censorship and saying they can't be an
02:48  arbiter of truth02:49this isn't about censorship it's not
02:52  about free speech it's about you
02:54  refusing to inject friction and cost
02:57  into your scalable business model this
02:59  will be complex and it will be expensive
03:01  so is democracy Google the search engine
03:05  enjoys 90% plus sheriffs search across
03:08  many of its largest markets and search
03:10  is now a bigger business than the entire
03:12  ad market of any nation with the
03:15  exception of the US are we comfortable
03:17  with one for-profit entity getting to
03:19  decide the answers to 90% of the queries
03:22  posed to our modern God search our
03:25  governments have implicitly communicated
03:27  to these firms with their fines that are
03:29  the equivalent of a 25 cent parking
03:32  ticket that the smart thing to do the
03:34  shareholder driven thing to do is to
03:36  break the law before need to get out
03:39  ahead of this issue fast that's wrapping
03:41  themselves in a neon blue pink or
03:43  rainbow blanket as an illusionist trick
03:45  to distract people from the belief that
03:48  they validated an age-old truth power
03:51  corrupts the worm has turned

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