S2E6: How the Tech Giants Became Modern Conglomerates, with guest Gordon Phillips

If the 20th century business landscape was populated by behemoth corporations like GE, Berkshire Hathaway, and Siemens, the 21st century is the era of technology titans such as Apple, Amazon, and Tesla. But these huge firms are separated by more than the border line of Y2K.

 As Tuck professor Gordon Phillips explains in this episode of the Knowledge in Practice podcast, the modern tech giants achieved their status not by gobbling up firms in various industries and putting them under one big roof; they did it by developing technologies that have applications in numerous, related sectors. In a new paper, Phillips identifies these companies as “21st century firms” and shows that they have used R&D to increase the scope of their operations by 60 percent between 1989 and 2017. This has resulted in increased valuations, and a significant boost to the markets overall. 

 “One of our major findings is that valuations go up as scope goes up,” Phillips says. “This is the opposite of the old line conglomerate literature. What’s interesting is that on a per-dollar-of-sales basis, the market is liking these increases in scope.”