Do tech companies control the world? According to research from MacKeeper, they at least control a hefty portion of the economy. By taking the current valuation of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and others, then comparing them to the GDP of countries on a map, we can see just how crazy things have become.
Take Apple for instance, one of the tech giants that has been nearly unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Valued at $2.2 trillion, the Cupertino company is richer than 96% of the world. In fact, only seven countries currently outrank the maker of the iPhone financially.
Turning an eye to Microsoft, we see that even at a "paltry" $1.8 trillion valuation, the company still generates enough money to put it on a par with all of Canada. Overall, only nine countries are worth more money than the developer of Windows.
Despite providing a service that we all likely use nearly every day, Amazon is valued at "only" $1.6 trillion. This means that the company makes more money than 92% of the world. MacKeeper went a little further here by calculating that Amazon makes $351,531 per employee annually, which is more than the highest GDP per capita in the world. Keep this in mind the next time you hear about Amazon employees peeing in bottles.
Alphabet, Google's parent company, is valued at $1.4 trillion, putting it ahead of all but 12 countries. Companies that don't quite reach the trillion dollar mark, including Tencent, Tesla, Facebook, and Alibaba, would also be among the richest countries in the world by GDP. Only the United States, China, Japan, Germany, India, United Kingdom, and France managed to outrank the tech giants.