This article repeatedly cites revenue growth numbers as an indicator of Nvidia and Apple’s relative health, which is a very particular way of looking at things. By way of another one, Apple had $416Bn in revenue, which was a 6% increase from the prior year, or about $25Bn, or about all of Nvidia’s revenue in 2023. Apple’s had slow growth in the last 4 years following a big bump during the early pandemic; their 5 year revenue growth, though, is still $140Bn, or about $10Bn more than Nvidia’s 2025 revenues. Nvidia has indeed grown like a monster in the last couple years - 35Bn increase from 23-24 and 70Bn increase from 24-25. Those numbers would be 8% and 16% increases for Apple respectively, which I’m sure would make the company a deeply uninteresting slow-growth story compared to new upstarts.

I get why the numbers are presented the way they are, but it always gets weird when talking about companies of Apple’s size - percent increases that underwhelm Wall Street correspond to raw numbers that most companies would sacrifice their CEO to a volcano to attain, and sales flops in Apple’s portfolio mean they only sold enough product to supply double-digit percentages of the US population.

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bombcar 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

US tech companies aren’t built to be like 3M is/was and able to have their hands in infinite pies.

The giant conglomerates in Asia seem more able to do it.

Google has somewhat tried but then famously kills most everything even things that could be successful if smaller businesses.

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roughly 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think there's something about both the myth of the unicorn and of the hero founder/CEO in tech that forces a push towards legibility and easy narratives for a company - it means that, to a greater degree than other industries, large tech companies are a storytelling exercise, and "giant corporate blob that sprawls into everything" isn't a sexy story, nor is "consistent 3% YoY gains," even when that's translating into "we added the GDP of a medium-sized country to our cash pile again this year."

Every time a CEO or company board says "focus," an interesting product line loses its wings.

	▲	flyinglizard 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's because the storytelling needed for Wall Street. It's the only way to get sky high revenue multiples, selling a dream, because if you're a conglomerate all you can do is to sell the P&L - it's like selling an index. If you have a business division that's does exceedingly well compared to the rest, you make more money by spinning it off. I think Asian companies are much less dependent on public markets and have as strong private control (chaebols in South Korea for example - Samsung, LG, Hyundai etc). If you look at US companies that are under "family control" you might see a similar sprawl, like Cargill, Koch, I'd even put Berkshire in this class even though it's not "family controlled" in the literal sense, it's still associated with two men and not a professional CEO.

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eldenring 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think this is more of a result of big US tech being extremely productive (with their main competency)

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m4rtink 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, it is insane what areas and products companies like Mitsubishi, Samsung, IHI or even Suntory are involved in.

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_the_inflator 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree. People confuse relative for absolute numbers.

And ironically Apple acts like being a small contender the moment they feel some heat after a decade of relatively easy wins everywhere it seemed.

So finally there is a company that gives Apple some much needed heat.

That’s why I in absolute terms side with NVIDIA, the small contender in this case.

PS: I had one key moment in my career when I was at Google and a speaker mentioned the unit “NBU”. It stands for next billion units.

This is ten years ago and started my mental journey into large scale manufacturing and production including all the processes included.

The fascination never left. It was a mind bender for me and totally get why people miss everything that large.

At Google it was just a milestone expected to be hit - not one time but as the word next indicates multiple times.

Mind blowing and eye opening to me ever since. Fantastic inspiration thinking about software, development and marketing.

	▲	zvorygin 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How did you get into large scale manufacturing and production? Was it a career switch? Downsides? It too fascinates me. Any book recommendations?

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sharkjacobs 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It might matter that Nvidia sells graphics cards and Apple sells computers and computer-like devices with cases and peripherals and displays and software and services. TSMC is responsible for a much larger proportion of Nvidia's product than Apple's.