Everything rises and falls on technology

Dr. John C. Maxwell posits that everything rises and falls on leadership. This is very true in the leadership of oneself, a business, or a Nation. A corollary states that leadership puts a lid on the potential of any system. He also adds that leadership is about providing influence just like Abraham Lincoln quips that if you want children to do something, you first have to go there before coming back to take them along.

We must, however, note that leaders come in several unique forms and oftentimes with different styles, strengths (character- and competence-wise), and different approaches. They often amplify the voice for the voiceless and multiply their leadership potential by helping others become strong leaders. The interesting discovery is however that, just like leadership, technology amplifies the voice of the voiceless, and offers huge leverage to the feeble. With several useful spin-offs and builds, similar to leadership, technology has gone on to influence every single area of our lives by offering simpler and easier to activate connect-points that allow feedback layers with learning frames to improve outcomes based on input and revert loops.

The list of the top 10 largest companies (by the enormity of market capitalization) in the world further points to the reality that technology provides a huge lead to the park with 9 out of 10 being US companies and 7 of the 10 running on the scale due to the tech wheels. That said, the article puts into consideration the topmost 7 out of the top ten in 2021, which include:

Apple with a market capitalization of $2.51 trillion (2021) engages in the electronics and information technology space, and offers products such as mobile, iPods, tablets, and personal computers. It became the first United States-based company to reach the trillion-dollar mark. Apple operates in the production and sales of application software, operating systems, smartphones, computers, and consumer electronics. They also sell other royalty products such as music, films, and software through an aggregator platform that they developed. So much for the Apple brand and cult-like following it commands, and yes Apple leads with technology.

Microsoft has a market capitalization of $2.269 trillion (2021), in the software development, information technology, and consumer electronics industry. Some of their products include the operating system, application software, games, and search engine. Truly, today, technology clear provides leadership and is a great enabler servant leader that offers great leverage at providing superior connection and value at the 5 levels of leadership — positional, permission (relational), production, people development and pinnacle (made possible through AI, data analytics, and VR). Indeed, everything rises and falls on technology leadership especially even now that the internet of things attempts to give life to every single thing around us following.

Alphabet (Google) has a market capitalization of $1.934 trillion (2021) within the internet, and software services operation space. Some of their products include the android operating system, search engine, chrome browser, and mobile devices. Alphabet Inc. in the United States is the parent company of Google LLC that has continued to function as a subsidiary. Being an umbrella company of Google, Alphabet deals in technology products, life sciences, investment capital, and research. The company works with, supports, and develop companies that make use of technologies to address global challenges that cut across different people groups and cultures by investing financial and tech resources on the codes, coders, and the conditions in which they engage to enable more freedom and flexibility as they turn ideas to value-driven reality. The ubiquitous android platform makes wearable technologies possible toward meeting the lifestyle needs of humanity. They are very big on innovation first, while only going for monetization after users have been served satisfactorily.

Saudi Aramco has a total company-shares value of $1.8916 trillion (2021) with primary operations in the oil and gas production, and refining space. Some of their products include crude oil, natural gas, and petrochemical derivatives. They are the Saudi Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company that works in oil and gas exploration, refinery, and trading. Acclaimed as the largest oil producer with spread across the world, and having the second-largest crude oil reserves. The Saudi Arabian Government owns the company, which went public in 2019 and attained the trillion-dollar mark on its first fundraising day in the IPO space, making it the only four-comma club company outside of the United State.

Amazon has a total share value of $1.758 trillion (2021) and operates in the retail business, e-commerce, and artificial intelligence. Some of their primary engagement platforms include their software, kindle (web and mobile versions), fireTV, and echo among others. They are fully American, in fact, the largest online retailer with huge products diversity, and only began operations as booksellers. Amazon drives subsidiaries in the whole foods market and household security products to mention but a few. Due to their size, the enormity of the data they warehouse, and the growing needs of customers, Amazon has gone on to operate in the cloud computing services, and subscription-based services space to enable their customers to get more value for their money, thereby offering Amazon Music (great soul food using an IP aggregation model), and the delectable Amazon Prime.

Facebook has a market cap of $1.07 trillion (2021), with operations in the Internet space and customer touch-points such as the Facebook portal (for social networking), and Messenger (they acquired WhatsApp for better reach on instant messaging). Mark Zuckerberg has it to say that, the company goes on a mission-first, then focuses on the pieces needed to go deep on them and be committed to the same. Facebook, a US company located in Menlo Park, California, owns the social network site Facebook, the experience (video and photo) sharing app Instagram, the messenger WhatsApp and the manufacturer of virtual reality hardware Oculus VR among several others it acquired.

Tesla, with a mission to accelerate the sustainable energy transition, has a total created share value of $0.737 trillion and its core operations in the automobiles, and energy industry. They offer to their teeming customer bases products such as cars, trucks, solar roofs, and energy-storage batteries. The company produces and sells electric cars to consumers across the world alongside energy storage batteries and energy conversion photovoltaic systems. The company formed ZETA (zero-emission transport association), consisting of 28 companies (including Tesla) in 2020, working on the movement of all internal combustion engines to electric. Tesla was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, however, Elon Musk is the face of the company and a major shareholder in the company.

There is so much to learn from the options made available to us through technology and even more how we can well position ourselves for a future that serves us as individuals, organizations, and countries. We definitely need to continuously improve and grow to remain relevant as knowledge doubles every 18 months.

We conclude with a quote by Max DePree, which says that the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. Today, technology is the reality of our experience as it effortlessly powers our systems, by offering service, more service, and timely service, while keeping costs on the low and efficiency on the continuous high. Yes, data remains the new oil while tech refines same; and the swift embrace US gave technology has made it into the true global leader netting $10.278 trillion market capitalization from the six tech companies above-mentioned.

Let’s create new narratives that continuously improve the conversations around technology leadership as I thank you for your time investment, yours in tech, Olufemi Ariyo.

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