Alphabet, a titan accustomed to the turning of the earth, barely registered the tremor. But IonQ, D-Wave, Rigetti, Quantum Computing Inc. – these smaller vessels, they danced on the waves, inflated by a breath that smelled of hope and, perhaps, a touch of delusion. The chart, a pale map of this brief frenzy, shows a momentary ascent, a reaching for the sun before the inevitable settling.
I’ve had a peek into the crystal ball (it’s a rather dusty thing, frankly) and I reckon four companies have a decent shot at overtaking the Apple cart within the next five years. Microsoft, Amazon, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Broadcom. A rather motley crew, if you ask me, but they have something Apple seems to have misplaced: a spark of actual cleverness.
According to a report that drips with gravitas from Fortune-ah, what a publication!-this newly minted board boasts academics hailing from the grand halls of Stanford, Harvard, and the University of California. They specialize in the lofty fields of computer science, cryptography, and fintech, which is essentially a fancy way of saying they know a lot about things that fly over most people’s heads.
Let’s be honest, this surge last year? It was all hype. The AI boom, everyone suddenly needing more power…it’s a good story, and the market loves a good story. But stories don’t pay dividends, do they? And they definitely don’t guarantee stability. Constellation got swept up in it, and investors…well, they got a little carried away. It’s the same old pattern: irrational exuberance, followed by a slightly panicked correction. I’ve seen it a hundred times. It’s exhausting, really.
One observes, with a detached amusement, that President Trump’s tariffs, those peculiar pronouncements from a bygone era, added a further wrinkle to the narrative. The company, with a pragmatism bordering on the cynical, has largely abandoned Chinese production, a strategic retreat reminiscent of a lepidopterist abandoning a depleted field. The chart, a stark geometric confession, reveals a decline of 69% from its 2021 zenith; the brief rally of late 2024, a flickering phantom, extinguished by the aforementioned tariff regime.
The question isn’t if they’ll grow, mind you, but how quickly. And which one will trip over its own feet first. Meta is due to spill the beans on its latest quarter soon, followed by Alphabet. Trying to predict what’ll happen when they do is like trying to herd cats wearing roller skates – utterly pointless, but amusing to watch if you’re not involved. Still, a peek under the bonnet before they report is a sensible move, wouldn’t you agree?
They’d been riding high, which, you know, sets the bar. Like trying to follow up a Beyoncé concert with a ukulele solo. Turns out, the biggest problem isn’t a lack of people wanting chips (the silicon kind, not the potato kind, though I’m pretty sure those are also in short supply these days). It’s actually getting them made. Supply chain issues, people. It’s the corporate equivalent of realizing you promised to bake cookies for 50 people and only have a bag of flour.
The usual avenues to wealth – tedious compounding and relentless saving – are, frankly, rather dull. Far more diverting is the search for that elusive ‘ten-bagger’ – a stock capable of multiplying one’s investment tenfold. It’s a gamble, naturally, but life, darling, is far too short for guaranteed returns.
It’s a matter of elegant simplicity, really. Coca-Cola’s asset-light model is… well, rather clever. Higher margins and greater cash flexibility aren’t to be sniffed at, you know. The popular impression is that Coca-Cola sells a drink. Utterly wrong. They sell the idea of a drink. Their core business isn’t peddling bottles to the public, but rather concentrates and syrups to independent bottling companies. Let them bother with the factories, the delivery vans, the logistical headaches. It’s a stroke of genius, frankly.
They’ve had a tidy-up, certainly. But a tidy-up isn’t the same as fixing the leaky roof, is it?