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by donaldguy 3427 days ago
Fair points, both you and akiselev; thanks for the clarification

I am not an especially economically-(or even really quantitatively) inclined person; I just see GDP bandied about as a metric of "size of economy" and market cap as "value of company". Revenue is probably locatable if someone wants to dig into quarterlies... I probably spent too much time on this exercise already
2 comments
lpolovets 3427 days ago
Here's a very, very rough ballpark estimate based on your data:

- $2.7T in market cap

- let's say average P/E ratio is 25 (P/E is approximately the ratio of company valuation to annual profits)

- let's say the profit margin of a typical tech company is 20%

- let's say 40% of a typical tech company's revenue is in the US

Estimated US revenue of the companies in your spreadsheet: $2.7T / 25 / 0.20 * 0.40 = $216b (about 1.5% of GDP, which is still huge)

By the way, I think your initial estimate of the total market cap of companies signing the brief is quite useful and informative, it just shouldn't be compared to GDP :)

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akiselev 3427 days ago
It's actually pretty easy but for a first order estimate: http://wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+2015+revenue+of+Googl...

I'm on mobile so I can't get the interface to work properly but it's much easier on desktop Mathematica or WolframAlpha. In the above figure, I only included names from the OP that I was certain were public after a quick glance and I didn't even get to Microsoft. The number is something like $500 billion a year but as a sibling comment to yours mentions, this includes international revenue that may never make it to the US.

Accurate data on this scale is hard to come by without a working Bloomberg terminal.

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