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

Popular posts from this blog

Costa Rica

 Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry.   Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while.  Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...

Charges attract

It is said that opposites attract meaning people with contrary viewpoint sometimes find chemistry to be together.  But I'm referring to a modern twist where people are merely attracted towards a common place because their uber communication device aka smart phone is about to die.  The charging station. From airports to hotel lobbies or even bathrooms, when in need they are attracted to this power outlet like moths to a flame or a junkie to a needle. A whole new business of supplying these hyper connected folks is now born whose lifesaver product is a backup charge. Asian tourists perpetually carry a phone sized battery pack stuck to their latest Apple phone updating their status to folks in Hong Kong or Shanghai or Bangalore as they pose for selfies with weird facial expressions and fingers pointed out in a letter V. Vain? PS:  I dis'charged' my blogger duties making this insightful observation as my phone is about to breathe it's last and my flight gets call...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...