The Inception of the Internet
Starting with the creation of the internet in 1997, there was a flurry of new companies some - legit, others - frauds. By the time the 200's came around the bubble had popped. All of the internet hype was gone, the tides went out and it was seen who was wearing pants and who wasn't. Companies like pets.com were getting significant valuations without any real product. Just throw a .com after your name and people would throw money at you (eerily similar to the latest AI craze). Only companies with actual revenues and more importantly, profits survived. One company that fit this bill was Amazon.com. Starting with library books, but expanding to all commerce and there AWS internet infrastructure powerhouse, they became a dominant internet player while providing solutions to one of the oldest human practices of commerce. Google, in a similar vein, was not profitable, but had found a magic formula coming out of the 2000 crash and were growing like crazy. Eventually they had an idea to advertise and this made them one of the greatest businesses in history to this day. Apple, with Steve Jobs as there leader came out with the iPhone in the mid 2000s and with a new form factor to sue this new found internet frontier. Microsoft, the 'ogs' and the original monopoly in computers in the 1990s pivoted to become more of a software company. Facebook, the latest of all the companies was able to differentiate themselves from all the other social media platforms at the time and create a platform that over a billion people use to connect with each other. Together these companies all built out the first generation of the internet. They are known as the FAANG stocks (excluding Netflix) or the magnificent 7 (excluding NVidia and tesla). However you want to group them together, these companies have been the dominant players for the last 20 years in shaping our everyday lives and how we use the internet to day. Apple and Microsoft providing the devices to use the internet. Google providing the way to navigate and be found on the internet. Amazon providing a way to do provide physical products and Meta/Facebook providing a way to connect with other humans. When you think about it, these are the most basic "needs" humans have and it's no wonder that these were the companies able to survive the .com crash, the 2008 crisis and become the most used products in the world. They are the best platforms to provide the most basic services every human can relate to.