

Ask HN: Which current tech company will have the highest valuation in 10 years? - 6thSigma


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6thSigma
I'll preface this by saying that 10 years ago Apple was a $3 stock. A lot can
change in 10 years.

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A few (IPOd) likely contenders:

Google - Currently the second highest tech valuation. They seem to be one of
the only companies putting serious resources in shaping the future (self
driving cars, mining asteroids). I can totally see Google being the company
that introduces personal assistant robots in homes.

Amazon - Brick and mortar stores will continue to get outclassed by the online
experience. Amazon will be THE way to shop, including groceries and everyday
items. They will grow into their crazy high P/E and begin to expand margins.

Apple - I think Apple will fall for a number of reasons, the biggest being the
passing of Steve Jobs. Their products are great but they can't continue to
grow the way they have the last 5 years (we are already starting to see this).
They will continue to make solid products but I see them in the same vain as
Microsoft circa '99.

Facebook - I am a long-term believer of Facebook but acknowledge they are the
riskiest of the others listed so far. They certainly have the opportunity to
be the biggest though. It really depends on two things: 1) how they fend off
competitors and 2) how they monetize. Ya, those are two pretty huge things to
depend on but like it or not they have the potential to be the biggest company
in the world in 10 years.

A few non-IPO companies that have a shot:

Twitter - I'm not really sure about Twitter. Are they a protocol? Are they a
media company? Are they an advertising firm? There is something about them
though that sticks. I can totally see them as the biggest social network in 10
years. I can also see them as being a huge advertising firm if they can get
metrics of how tweets influence customers (e.g. if Lebron James tweets that he
is getting McDonalds for dinner, what percentage increase in sales does
McDonalds get within an hour of that tweet?). I can see Twitter being a $100b
company in 10 years if they can figure out how to understand their influential
data.

Square - This company has the potential to monopolize phone payments. I can
see our phones being the leading source of payments in the next few years so I
think Square has the potential to get huuuuuge.

Dropbox - I'm not too sure about Dropbox. They provide a great experience but
I just don't know that they have the potential to be the biggest company in
the world. Data storage will not get them there - they have to expand into
something more.

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All that being said, I think Google and Amazon will fight for the biggest
valuation in the world in 10 years. (Ignoring companies that haven't been
started yet that revolutionize an industry, obviously.)

Discloser: Long Google. Short Facebook via puts.

~~~
phaus
If they pull off the asteroid mining, won't it instantaneously make Google the
most valuable company by like 1000 times? I remember reading that they want to
haul a 100 ton chunk of platinum back to earth or something like that.

~~~
OafTobark
Abundance in supply would drive prices down unless they pulled a Diamond move

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moocow01
I wouldn't bet on Facebook/Twitter/Social - its honestly a very hard business
to be in for a megacorp. Slippery customers, monetization destroys product
quality - there are lots of statements people like to make such as "but what
if FB just does X" (charges a dollar, muscles into search, etc) - those what
ifs in actuality are very difficult pivots. Additionally its telling that the
number 2 social network (in terms of popularity) cant figure out how to
consistently make money. Social networking in general is a graveyard of small
rockstar companies that have generated more hype than dollars.

Apple is a behemoth - they may be at the top of their game but they have a
looong looong way to fall if they start to. They may be the most valuable just
by how large they are today. I think generally they will smartly stay at what
they are good at (consumer devices/software).

Amazon is my vote - they are amazing at scale in almost every way. Im not too
keen on seeing this happen but I think they are going to slowly eat almost all
of retail. On top of it, it seems as if they are successfully trying to
replicate their model for retail across other segments (AWS/digital/etc) -
Amazon seems to want to be a provider for everything and the scary part is
that they are doing it quite well and quickly.

Google I think has some good things ahead but in a lot of ways I think they
have stagnated from a business perspective. Its a bit hard to see this
perspective in that they deservedly uphold an amazing reputation amongst the
tech community. They have great ideas but they are still 100% in the ad
business after all these years and many years of trying diversification. They
have great side projects that live great lives today but from a business
perspective they are always still side projects. I think Google will see some
moderate growth but am not too bullish on their version of glass or auto-cars
ever being true business drivers for them.

Dropbox, Square - great services - will remain blips on the radar of history
compared to the others.

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ActVen
Amazon...with Google coming in second.

Google has an amazing advantage at matching user intent with relevant results,
some of that intent is commercial. Amazon has tied some of its revenue to the
general technological progress by powering the infrastructure of technology
companies(AWS). Of course, this is just a bonus to their nearly unstoppable
success in selling physical and digital products. The only thing that can stop
Amazon is a series of huge missteps on its part.

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donnington
I'm going to go out on a limb and say...IBM. Not quite as sexy as the other
tech companies but their hardware and software powers nearly nearly every
business, thousands of patents, the largest IT services/consulting
organization in the world, 200 year history, the list goes on.

Also, [http://www.forbes.com/sites/gurufocus/2013/01/08/why-
warren-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gurufocus/2013/01/08/why-warren-
buffett-keeps-buying-ibm/)

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tokenadult
Google. My immediately previous comment

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5034258>

in another thread remarks that Google knows something about how the world
works that other companies neglect. That is, Google knows how to leverage
government regulations to protect its financial strength while it disrupts
industry segments that are not regulated in a way to stop Google from moving
in.

For perspective, the top ten tech companies by valuation in early 2012:

[http://smallbusiness.chron.com/10-highest-valued-tech-
compan...](http://smallbusiness.chron.com/10-highest-valued-tech-
companies-39513.html)

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got2surf
My guess is Amazon - they're involved in enough different lines of business
that even if one drops off, they'll still be fine, and if all lines of
business prosper, they're in for huge growth.

E-commerce should continue to drive huge revenues, their cloud offerings are
supporting a lot of emerging companies and technologies (which hopefully
continues), and if they continue physical product offerings (semi-
transformational things like the Kindle), they're looking good.

as an aside it'll be interesting to see what social sites do long term -
perhaps Palantir's focus on brilliant engineers and consistent growth will let
it eclipse Facebook/Twitter/etc at some point?

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mpg33
I'd have to say Google...i mean i just can't see them going away anytime
soon...especially if they keep improving the search capabilities...they are
essentially building the best A.I. in the world

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OafTobark
My vote is on Apple IF, and its a big fat ugly IF, they ever would do two
things...

1\. Become agnostic to their own software. What others have said about Dropbox
not getting acquired by Apple is a good thing is true. iCloud is specific to
the Apple ecosystem. A great company would expand for all and I get that Apple
doesn't need to and there are advantages in not doing so, but that leaves a
lot of things off the table that they could. Expanding to allow some things to
be cross platform will be a huge advantage for them if they can ever do it.

2\. Get better at web services. Apple suck balls when it comes to running
anything web related. Whether that's an ad company, a social network, or just
about anything else they've tried. They should acquire a huge company in the
space (something like FB) and expand to make this weakness a strength.

If not Apple (because of said reasons above), I vote for GitHub. Just kidding.
I like Github but it'll probably be Tesla or SpaceX

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j2bax
It seems as though Apple has in fact made certain offerings cross platform
where it has served them well. iTunes is probably the largest, which made it
so iOS device owners aren't limited to OSX and so they could sell digital
content to everyone. Based on the success of that ecosystem you would think
that they might consider expanding their reach across platforms in other areas
in the future.

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roschdal
Good question. I'm also wondering which current tech company will have the
greatest increase in valuation in 10 years.

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dotborg
Facebook, because it's still not using all of its potential.

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eugenejen
my vote is dropbox.

