Technology
Is Big Tech In Another Bubble?
Is Big Tech In Another Bubble?
“It’s different this time.”
Right now all the talk is about big tech IPOs – particularly with Alibaba completing the biggest IPO ever and companies like Uber moving towards $40 billion valuations.
Warren Buffett says that in business, the rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield. To this point, we would have to agree: even though it may feel like this time it is different, there may be something unexpected hidden that clouds our collective judgement. We may have another tech bubble on our hands.
Detractors will say that companies in the Dotcom bust spent too much money too fast, and that everything was speculative. That, in today’s market, companies are making real ground on revenue and earnings growth, and companies are more scalable than ever.
However, we would point out that it is many of the things that make startups scalable that also could lead to the demise of big tech. Technology moves so fast that all it takes is an idea to disrupt their business model. Yahoo! purchased Geocities in January 1999 for $3.57 billion and now Geocities does not exist. Why? Because the business model got outdated very fast – platforms such as WordPress allowed people to build sites without the embedded advertising and hosting got way cheaper. This all happened over the course of a few years, and it was a game changer.
Do we expect that companies like Facebook, Snapchat, Uber, Lyft, Amazon, and Alibaba to be around in the same capacity in 10 years? What will their maturity look like, especially as technology continues to change? How will this affect valuations for more speculative IPOs?
Original graphic from: WhoIsHostingThis.com
Brands
How Tech Logos Have Evolved Over Time
From complete overhauls to more subtle tweaks, these tech logos have had quite a journey. Featuring: Google, Apple, and more.
How Tech Logos Have Evolved Over Time
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
One would be hard-pressed to find a company that has never changed its logo. Granted, some brands—like Rolex, IBM, and Coca-Cola—tend to just have more minimalistic updates. But other companies undergo an entire identity change, thus necessitating a full overhaul.
In this graphic, we visualized the evolution of prominent tech companies’ logos over time. All of these brands ranked highly in a Q1 2024 YouGov study of America’s most famous tech brands. The logo changes are sourced from 1000logos.net.
How Many Times Has Google Changed Its Logo?
Google and Facebook share a 98% fame rating according to YouGov. But while Facebook’s rise was captured in The Social Network (2010), Google’s history tends to be a little less lionized in popular culture.
For example, Google was initially called “Backrub” because it analyzed “back links” to understand how important a website was. Since its founding, Google has undergone eight logo changes, finally settling on its current one in 2015.
| Company | Number of Logo Changes |
|---|---|
| 8 | |
| HP | 8 |
| Amazon | 6 |
| Microsoft | 6 |
| Samsung | 6 |
| Apple | 5* |
Note: *Includes color changes. Source: 1000Logos.net
Another fun origin story is Microsoft, which started off as Traf-O-Data, a traffic counter reading company that generated reports for traffic engineers. By 1975, the company was renamed. But it wasn’t until 2012 that Microsoft put the iconic Windows logo—still the most popular desktop operating system—alongside its name.
And then there’s Samsung, which started as a grocery trading store in 1938. Its pivot to electronics started in the 1970s with black and white television sets. For 55 years, the company kept some form of stars from its first logo, until 1993, when the iconic encircled blue Samsung logo debuted.
Finally, Apple’s first logo in 1976 featured Isaac Newton reading under a tree—moments before an apple fell on his head. Two years later, the iconic bitten apple logo would be designed at Steve Jobs’ behest, and it would take another two decades for it to go monochrome.
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