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Chart: The Largest Companies by Market Cap Over 15 Years

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Chart: The Largest Companies by Market Cap Over 15 Years

Chart: The Largest Companies by Market Cap Over 15 Years

The Oil Barons have been replaced by the Whiz Kids of Silicon Valley

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

By definition, the largest companies by market cap are the most valued by investors in absolute terms.

Of course, these companies change all the time. Secular trends rise and fall, and economic cycles rinse and repeat. New companies are built, while former “blue chips” may struggle. For every Enron that busts, there’s an Amazon shooting up through the ranks.

At the end of the day, however, a snapshot of the largest companies at a given time tells us what the market valued the most. And as this week’s chart shows, this simple data series can also tell us a surprising amount about the macroeconomic story over recent years.

Energy Downturn, Tech Upturn

In 2001, oil was about $30/bbl. Only one oil company (Exxon) cracked the top five list by market cap at the time.

Fast forward a decade, when oil prices soared to the $100/bbl neighborhood. At this point, three of five of the largest companies by market cap were now in the oil business: Exxon, PetroChina, and Royal Dutch Shell.

And today? We are back at $40/bbl and no energy companies crack the top five. Instead, the list has been completely replaced by tech companies, including Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.

Scale is in Style

Well, scale has always been in style, but now it is achievable in ways like never before. To reach more people, Walmart had to build more stores, expand complex supply chains, and hire new employees. This takes a lot of capital and manpower, and the stakes are high for each new expansion.

Amazon on the other hand, can bring in more revenues with less of the work or risk involved. Scale allows tech companies to get bigger without getting bogged down by many of the problems that companies with millions of employees can run into.

The world’s best tech companies are also able to gain competitive advantages that are extremely difficult to supplant. While oil companies are fighting over a limited supply and have a commoditized end product, Google and Facebook have key businesses that are truly unique and the best at what they do.

For these reasons, tech is likely to top the leaderboard for the largest companies by market cap for the foreseeable future.

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Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs

Nearly 800,000 AI jobs were posted in the U.S. throughout 2022. View this graphic to see a breakdown by state.

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Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs

Much ink has been spilled over fears that artificial intelligence (AI) will eliminate jobs in the economy. While some of those fears may be well-founded, red-hot interest in AI innovation is creating new jobs as well.

This graphic visualizes data from Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, which shows how many AI-related jobs were posted in each state throughout 2022.

In total there were 795,624 AI jobs posted throughout the year, of which 469,925 (59%) were in the top 10. The full tally is included in the table below.

RankStateNumber of job postings% of total
1California142,15417.9%
2Texas66,6248.4%
3New York43,8995.5%
4Massachusetts34,6034.3%
5Virginia34,2214.3%
6Florida33,5854.2%
7Illinois31,5694.0%
8Washington31,2843.9%
9Georgia26,6203.3%
10Michigan25,3663.2%
11North Carolina23,8543.0%
12New Jersey23,4472.9%
13Colorado20,4212.6%
14Pennsylvania20,3972.6%
15Arizona19,5142.5%
16Ohio19,2082.4%
17Maryland16,7692.1%
18Minnesota11,8081.5%
19Tennessee11,1731.4%
20Missouri10,9901.4%
21Oregon10,8111.4%
22Washington, D.C.9,6061.2%
23Indiana9,2471.2%
24Connecticut8,9601.1%
25Wisconsin8,8791.1%
26Alabama7,8661.0%
27Kansas7,6831.0%
28Arkansas7,2470.9%
29Utah6,8850.9%
30Nevada6,8130.9%
31Idaho6,1090.8%
32Oklahoma5,7190.7%
33Iowa5,6700.7%
34South Carolina4,9280.6%
35Louisiana4,8060.6%
36Kentucky4,5360.6%
37Nebraska4,0320.5%
38Delaware3,5030.4%
39New Mexico3,3570.4%
40Rhode Island2,9650.4%
41New Hampshire2,7190.3%
42Hawaii2,5500.3%
43Mississippi2,5480.3%
44Maine2,2270.3%
45South Dakota2,1950.3%
46Vermont1,5710.2%
47North Dakota1,2270.2%
48Alaska9700.1%
49West Virginia8870.1%
50Montana8330.1%
51Wyoming7690.1%

The following chart adds some context to these numbers. It shows how the percentage of AI job postings in some of the top states has changed since 2010.

We can see that California quickly became the primary destination for AI jobs in the early 2010s, presumably as Silicon Valley companies began developing the technology.

California’s share has since declined, with a significant number of jobs seemingly moving to Texas. In fact, many tech companies are relocating to Texas to avoid California’s relatively higher taxes and cost of living.

The 10 Most In-Demand Specialized Skills

Lightcast also captured the top 10 specialized skills that were required for AI-related jobs. These are listed in the table below.

SkillFrequency (number of postings)Frequency (% of postings)
Python296,66237%
Computer Science260,33333%
SQL185,80723%
Data Analysis159,80120%
Data Science157,85520%
Amazon Web Services155,61519%
Agile Methodology152,96519%
Automation138,79117%
Java133,85617%
Software Engineering133,28617%

If you’re interested in a career that focuses on AI, becoming proficient in Python is likely to be a good first step.

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