Skip to main content

Its all GAS!

Addicts of the world unite - Apple Corporation has fleetingly become the largest company in the world based on market capitalization. Keyword fleetingly. ExxonMobil is traditionally the other one that has held that title. Market cap is defined as total shares otustanding times the market value of the share. This is merely a reflection of what investors view the worth of the business to be. Now Apple has not had a run up out of that zone where it barely scraped Exxon for the top slot - a mere reflection of being too big to grow based on an earlier high water mark (or high Gas Mark)! Though on closer inspection it appears there are some similarities betwixt the two. Both are commodities that people now find hard to leave their home without. It is omnipresent where you look - and is addictive. People need to speed on the blacktop as much as the information highway and this speed (some drugs were actually called that) need is satiated with both these products. But if only people slow down and chill they realize that they were merely running in circles or getting ahead of everyone to the next red light. Economies of Peru and Venezuela today run on other addictive substances that can kill. The net benefits of the Apple and Exxon products although more useful and somewhat less threatening also tend to have the same effect as getting people to pay premiums and want it every living moment. If drugs were made legal - which they should be - South American countries might have the highest valued companies in the world. Among many benefits will be that weak people who can succumb to halucinogenic chemicals will get easy access and depart soon without causing undue harm to society. Fortune will have to rewrite its top 100 list completely rather than compare the fruit and the Gas company all the time. So its all Gas at the end of the day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Presumptive Society

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...
2 comments
Read more

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
2 comments
Read more

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...
Post a Comment
Read more