Kinda interesting that Google's market cap is now higher than IBM's despite having 1/10th as many employees. I guess it sorta makes sense, since employees are costs and therefore should adversely affect the market cap.
In a similar vein, Wal-Mart (with its 2 million employees, 100 times more than Google) has a market cap of only $206B. On a good day, Apple could pass that and become #3.
Even accounting for employees being costs, though, the valuations seem like they must be based mainly on a prediction that either Google is going to grow a lot, or those other companies are going to shrink. Wal-Mart and IBM both make around 2x Google's annual profits, for example (around $13.5b each vs. $6.5b).
So the "wisdom of the crowds" is that Apple is really onto something with the iPad? Or are people manipulating the market into excess optimism about Apple so they can cash in?
