Been thinking about something interesting in the stock markets news lately. Everyone's obsessed with Nvidia right now - and sure, their $4.5 trillion market cap is absolutely wild. Their chips basically run the AI show. But here's what I keep coming back to: a decade is a really long time in tech. Competitors catch up. Customers build their own stuff. Valuations eventually hit that wall called reality.

So which stocks could actually be worth more than Nvidia by 2036? I keep circling back to two names.

Alphabet's situation is wild if you really think about it. Yeah, Google Cloud is one of Nvidia's biggest customers - they're dumping billions into AI infrastructure. But here's the thing most people miss: Alphabet isn't locked into Nvidia hardware forever. They've already built custom AI chips with Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor. These Tensor chips are designed specifically for Google's AI workloads, and they're starting to sell them to other hyperscalers too.

Meanwhile, pretty much every major AI company is now designing their own chips. That's going to put pressure on Nvidia's pricing eventually. Meanwhile Google Cloud's revenues have more than tripled in three years. They went from barely profitable at the end of 2022 to $5.3 billion in operating profit last quarter. That's the kind of growth story that compounds.

Alphabet's also got this whole umbrella structure with Waymo, Verily, and other bets. It's diversified in a way Nvidia just isn't. The company literally just issued a 100-year bond. That's not something you do unless you believe in your own staying power. Currently at $3.7 trillion market cap, Alphabet's only 20% behind Nvidia. If Nvidia grows at 11.5% annually over the next decade and Alphabet hits 14%, they'd basically tie around $13.5 trillion each. That's plausible.

Now, Berkshire Hathaway is the boring play that actually works. They'd need about a 15% annual return to reach where Nvidia is today by 2036. That's basically in line with the S&P 500's recent performance and what Berkshire's actually been doing. They're not going to have the explosive growth story, but that's kind of the point. While Nvidia's stock bounces around like crazy, Berkshire just keeps compounding. Their insurance business, their diversified holdings, their fortress balance sheet - it all keeps working decade after decade.

I'm not saying Berkshire definitely passes Nvidia in 10 years. But even if they come close, that's still massive returns for anyone holding long-term. The real question is whether you want to bet on hypergrowth that eventually normalizes, or steady compounding that just keeps working. Both are legitimate plays in the stock markets news cycle right now.