Apple market capitalisation briefly exceeds Exxon's

For a few moments today, Apple was the most valuable company in the world. If we permit ourselves to measure human history in such simple terms, the age of fossil fuels is about to end, and that of technology finally to begin. But we don't, because that's a bit silly, really. [sfgate]

• [David Forbes]

  Let’s see you make those iPads without fossil fuels!

• [Daen de Leon]

  Up to a point, Lord Copper.  It *is* indicative of something, but it isn’t the first time – Microsoft was there in the late 90s and early 2000s.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  Lord Copper!

• [Daen de Leon]

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_(novel)

  • [Rob Beschizza]

    SACK RECEIVED SAFELY THOUGHT I MIGHT AS WELL SEND THIS ALL THE SAME

• [Baptiste]

  I’m pretty confident in the fact that oil extraction is a technology.

• [Xof]

  Beleaguered company is beleaguered.

• [kP]

  Apple now requires subsidies!  

• [Jonathan Badger]

  Perhaps an Apple spill will occur and volunteers will have to save seabirds covered in iPods…

  • [travtastic]

    Actually, I think an apple spill sounds delicious.

    • [zuludaddy]

      I would think an apple spill would sound macintosh…

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      Actually, I think an apple spill sounds delicious

      Actually, I know someone who was in a massive truck accident on the Waldo Grade and had to dig herself out after being buried in spilled apples.  Totaled her car.  So laugh all you want about apple spills, Mister Man.

      • [travtastic]

        I don’t believe it. Sounds kind of seedy.

  • [Gunn]

    Ah. The iValdez spill, as it was known.

• [Eray Ozkural]

  funny remark that last one :)

• [greebo]

  Having the biggest market capitalization does not make a company the most valuable. For that the company would have to actually do some good in the world. You know, like save lives or something.

• [David Manning]

  Perhaps Cory Doctorow will ask Exxon to sell Android phones.

• [Bj Niegowski]

  “the age of fossil fuels is about to end, and that of technology finally
  to begin. But we don’t, because that’s a bit silly, really.”  Tell that to Alvin Toffler, “The Third Wave” predicted this in 1980… Just saying…

• [Phlip]

  Breaking News: Someone, somewhere, gives a darn about a credit rating.

• [Phlip]

  …or a valuation.

• [Phlip]

  (and slick upgrade BB tx u!)

• [PaulCyopick]

  So why is the US fighting these wars in the name of democracy? Obviously a tightly closed dictatorship works best, as long as you can convince enough people that following blindly is “thinking differently”.

• [drewhabits]

  The “age of technology” has been going along pretty steadily since we first banged a couple of rocks together to make one sharper, is the thing

• [RJ]

  I miss the age of wonder, with its Gelflings and Dark Crystals and such.

• [Guest]

  Here we are in the science-fictiony future of 2011, and I can’t help but share the thought I had way back in 1984 when I acquired my first Apple //e: Yeah, I’m on the right track here, Downey Jr.

• [nikosal]

  I heard Exxon attempted to block other firms’ gas stations in Europe because she has patented smell of gas -but failed. Apple was more lucky with a german judge who decided the company owned the euclidean rectangle and that’s how she  “briefly” surpassed the oil giant.

• [BarBarSeven]

  Can’t wait to see “Angry Birds: Exxon Valdez”, the game where you have to toss oily birds (who are angry about it) through various cleaning apparatus.

• [Aron Briggs]

  not surprised. when’s the last time you downloaded any apps using your five gallon tank of gasoline in the garage. also i noticed no one seems to get upset when i take my iphone to entertain myself during jury duty but the one time i show up with my five gallon tank of gasoline  everyone gets all handcuffy and pepersprayey.

• [Orthodoxcaveman]

  “the age of fossil fuels is about to end, and that of technology finally to begin”…what’s electricity made from then, Care Bear farts and unicorn tears?

  • [AnthonyC]

    Very little electricity gets made from oil (at least in the US).
    In decreasing order, our electricity comes from coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, biomass, oil, geothermal, trash (incinerators), solar.

    • [echolocate chocolate]

      Coal is a fossil fuel too. So is natural gas.

      • [AnthonyC]

        Yes, I know. My mistake- I was thinking about Exxon from the post, so I had oil on the brain when I read Orthodoxcaveman’s comment.

• [benher]

  If you need me, I’ll be in my fossil-fuel powered cryogenic chamber… eagerly awaiting the age of coke and strippers.

• [walker]

  Given how dependent modern tech is on fossil fuels, and the extravagant embodied energy costs of microchips, I’d be just as worried for the “age of technology” as anything else in a peak oil situation.

• [onepieceman]

  This is presented with a triumphal sub-text. But why? 
  Why do people who hated Microsoft because of its power and semi-closed approach to software seem to worship Apple who are now more powerful and much more closed?

  • [arikol]

    because Apple have the style to pull it off with panache?

    • [onepieceman]

      Fair enough. Let’s hope they get bigger and more dominant, so we can have more panache.

• [arikol]

  I am completely amazed that a single company selling such frivolous items as personal music players and portable electronics gets to be so huge. I LIKE Apple products, and prefer them to many others, but this is still just amazing to me. 

• [technogeekagain]

  https://www.xkcd.com/934/

• [GrumpySteen]

  Remember WebVan?  If you go by the stock price and shares issued, it was worth over a billion dollars at one point.

  Of course they never made a profit and went bankrupt, proving that the company was never worth a dime.

  Market capitalization is a measure of how valuable people think a company might become, not how valuable it actually is.