Human / Machine: Creative Destruction at the Speed of Light

The world’s largest companies today are very different from the world’s largest companies a decade ago. The change reflects the increased importance of technology in the economy. If we include Amazon, the six biggest corporations on the planet are all technology-related businesses; one of those did not exist before 2004, and only two were around before 1994.

The technology sector accounts for one-fifth of the market capitalization of the MSCI All Country World Index. It is once again bigger even than the financials sector, even without including the many tech businesses categorized in the consumer or communications services sectors. The market cap of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent combined is greater than that of the entire stock markets of the euro zone or Japan.