Apple is bigger by market cap than Microsoft, Google, Amazon & Facebook combined

Seriously, I'm tired of all this BS. What matters for a real company is how they stand to innovate, not <i>how much</i> they make. Right now, Apple's strategy seems to be more of 'litigate' than innovate. What's the use of all this market cap by exercising unfair, unjust monopoly by abusing the patent system with trivial, BS patents?<p>I know a lot of companies that don't make a lot of money but strive for true innovation (Eg. Tesla Motors). Money is not everything, you know...even a prostitute makes a lot of money..and that doesn't mean that the prostitute is <i>better</i> than the average, faithful woman...because she stands for something true, unlike the prostitute.

Am I the only one who is tired of being updated what Apples market cap is now bigger than?<p>At first they were interesting stats, but in reality it isn't overly useful information.

For now...<p>I don't expect this to continue. They've picked some seriously big fights recently. From prior observation, I have always seen that it only ends bad.

Market cap is a nearly useless measure, especially on a large company.<p>Apple's stock price is based not on current or even future value, but on being big and a low-risk investment for mutual funds and other institutional investors. Can we stop pretending it's a measure of success, value, or consumer preference?<p>Let's end this silliness. Do we really believe Apple is more valuable than Google + Microsoft? Do we really think they impact more users, or have a greater reach than those two companies combined? Nearly every computer in the world runs Windows, and Google organizes the world's information and delivers it to more people than anyone else.<p>Apple sells phones, and occasionally a computer, but not very many of either relative to their markets. Roughly 60% of their valuation and revenue come from a rapidly-aging product in a mature market.<p>If I were on Apple's board, I'd be terrified of what that stock price represents - that my job is now only to continue existing. Not to do great things, not to risk everything on a new product, and not to have vision or leadership. Just to continue existing.

Market cap means nothing though. Facebook's size measured this way was bigger than all the publicly listed supermarkets in the UK combined, yet Facebook makes less profit than each of them individually.

&#60;tangential&#62;<p>Let's say one could choose only one of the groups: either have Apple while MS, Google, Amazon, and FB does not exists, or there's no Apple and the rest is there.<p>Would anyone really choose the first scenario?<p>&#60;/tangential&#62;

Can anybody say "bubble"?<p>It's clear to most people Apple isn't worth the money the stock markets assign it - well over half their cap is investment in the brand.<p>If they ever do anything to damage that or if they do something even remotely wrong, a whole lot of people are going to lose a whole lot of money.

Apple has become the big bully a-hole company that Microsoft used to be (perhaps even worse). Apple always was the little guy and had it's faithful niche market. It was the "underdog" that everyone rooted (or at least deep down felt a bit felt sorry for). Now it has "sold out" and gone mainstream. It has become a greedy corporate giant and with it's figurehead now out of the picture - it's image has begun to tarnish even faster.<p>I predict that dislike or even hatred toward apple will begin to expand until it equals or surpasses that we see of Microsoft today. It will no longer be "hip" and once this image slips - Apple will plummet.<p>This coupled by other tech companies (including all other smartphone manufacturers) banding together and defeating Apple's garbage patent claims (they own a patent on a perfect rectangle as part of a UI design?) will spell an end of a great run for Apple where innovation boomed, but was overcome by greed -leading to their eventual downfall.