a16z Chart Weekly Report: The market value of 10 tech companies has already surpassed the GDP of the G7 six countries

Author: a16z New Media

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: a16z’s latest chart weekly report breaks down a core argument with a wealth of data: the tech industry’s dominance over the global economy is still accelerating. The top ten companies by global market value have already surpassed the combined GDP of the G7 (excluding the U.S.), and AI may reshape organizational forms once again—just like railroads once drove the rise of modern corporate systems. In addition, stablecoins are shifting from transfer tools to real payment scenarios, and young Americans’ trust in traditional media has fallen to a historic low.

Software devours the world

Of course we have a viewpoint, but the importance of technology to the global economy is genuinely hard to overestimate.

You could even say software has really eaten the world:

Caption: Top ten listed companies by global market value vs G7 (excluding the U.S.) GDP

The combined market value of the top ten listed companies worldwide exceeds the total GDP of all G7 (excluding the U.S.) countries. Even if we exclude Saudi Aramco—which no one would classify as a “tech company”—the conclusion is the same. (Though Saudi Aramco was indeed founded in San Francisco!)[^1]

To be fair, the top ten are more like “tech + semiconductors (plus Tesla and Apple, which are hard to categorize)” rather than pure software companies. But the conclusion remains unchanged: technology is not just a big business—it is the biggest business.

And tech’s takeover of the global economy is happening fast:

Caption: Market value of the top ten tech companies vs G7 (excluding the U.S.) GDP, time series

The combined market value of the top ten tech companies was once only a small fraction of G7 (excluding the U.S.) GDP, until cloud computing truly took off in 2016-2017. Since then, in less than ten years, these companies’ combined market value has surpassed the entire GDP of the world outside China.

The rise of tech isn’t just about swapping out a set of winners.

The biggest companies are far larger than they were 10 years ago:

Caption: Changes in market value size and share of the top ten companies in the S&P 500

The combined market value of the largest 10 companies in the S&P 500 is about 6 times that of 2015, and their share of total index market capitalization has doubled as well.

There really has been a “shake-up.” Compared with the decades before, the composition of the top ten has changed dramatically. By 2025, only three will carry over from the previous decade, and only one (Microsoft, a tech company) will remain from the decade before that.

If you were a 2015 investor trying to model tech stocks using the largest companies in that index at the time, you would have underestimated the upside potential by roughly 6 times. Tech fundamentally “broke the model,” redefining how high the ceiling for a company can be.

And that ceiling looks like it’s still moving upward.

In fact, tech’s core position in the global growth story has been strengthening recently. Last week we showed that the market’s profit-growth expectation for the tech sector is about 2 times that of the rest of the market. Looking further back, you’ll find that tech is contributing a historically large share of overall market profit growth:

Caption: Industry contribution share to overall market profit growth

Since 2023, tech has accounted for about 60% or more of the market’s total profit growth.

Aside from the brief boom the energy sector saw in the early 21st century, no other industry has played such a central role in profit growth—and for such a sustained period.

Today, you could say tech is not a cycle; it is the cycle itself.

Railroads and GPT

We just said tech is an unprecedented big deal, but that statement isn’t quite accurate.

In the industrial era, no industry was more dominant than railroads:

Caption: Railroads’ share of total market cap in the U.S. market (historical peak around 63%)

At its peak, railroads accounted for about 63% of the total market cap in the U.S., and Bank of America called it “the most dominant innovative industry in history.”

Bears love to tell a story with this railroad chart: look, railroads once made up 63% of the market, then the bubble burst, and now they’re almost negligible.

But it’s not that simple. Railroads are still important today. What truly happened is that railroads gave birth to an entirely new economic system—one far bigger than railroads themselves.

Caption: Changes in sector shares in the U.S. stock market (from the 19th century to today)

Railroads handed dominance to industry, and industry in turn gave way to tech (with finance and real estate briefly taking the lead before the global financial crisis).

Even though tech is big today, in terms of relative share, it’s nowhere near as large as the transportation industry (or real estate and finance) was at its peak in the 19th century.

The economy has become bigger and more complex. Today, about 70% of industries in the market were either very small in 1900 or didn’t exist at all.

Caption: U.S. stock market industry composition in 1900 vs today

In 1900, the U.S. economy was basically textiles, steel, coal, and tobacco—plus railroads to transport them and banks to finance them. Today, all of those industries combined account for only a tiny fraction.

So a more interesting question isn’t whether a platform transition is a bubble, but what new economy this technological leap unlocks.

Railroads are an incredible general-purpose technology. One dramatic (yet unexpectedly) change they sparked was the birth of the modern corporate system. Before railroads appeared, a company was usually small enough that one person’s head could hold it. But railroads involved too many train sets, too many stations, and too many decisions occurring simultaneously.

In 1855, the director of the New York and Erie Railroad drew what’s considered the first modern organizational chart: a hierarchical reporting relationship “tree” designed to solve the increasingly thorny scheduling problems in railroads. In many ways, middle management, multi-divisional structures, the class of professional managers, and MBA degrees all trace their origins to organizational problems created by railroads.

Railroads didn’t just change what America produced—they changed the very concept of “enterprise.” Railroads gave rise to middle management, which Alfred Chandler called “the visible hand.”

What’s interesting about AI is that, compared with railroads, it may rewrite the dominant organizational template established more than a hundred years ago—again.

Last month, Jack Dorsey and Block’s management published an article making exactly this point: in companies, AI’s value isn’t about giving everyone a copilot; it’s about replacing the functions of middle management. Tasks such as absorbing and routing information, maintaining alignment, and pre-calculating decisions—which are typically handled by management—can be delegated to technology in an AI company, bringing humans back to the edges and concentrating judgment on customer-facing engagement and interpersonal interactions.

According to him, a 170-year-old enterprise management model will be entrusted to technology, creating an entirely new organizational form. That’s not a small thing.

Whether Dorsey is right (and what kind of new enterprise will ultimately emerge) is, of course, still an open question. But the impact is far more important than whether “tech stocks will pull back from their highs this quarter.”

Stablecoin trading volume shifting from transfers to payments

After stripping away the mechanical operations related to trading, funds management, and exchange-related processes—which account for the bulk of stablecoin trading—real payment transactions between different parties last year are estimated to be between $350 billion and $550 billion.

Caption: Stablecoin payments split by type (B2B, B2C, C2B)

B2B dominates stablecoin payments (given the scale, not surprising), but B2C and C2B are also growing.

In short, stablecoins are playing an increasingly large role in everyday commercial activities. This is part of a bigger trend that a16z crypto discusses in detail in this article.

The next decade for the news industry

Americans’ trust in mass media has recently hit another new low—one of the most spectacular slow-motion collapses in the history of modern polling.

Caption: Changes in Americans’ trust in mass media (1975-2025)

In 2025, only 28% of Americans said they have “a lot of” or “a fair amount of” trust in mass media (newspapers, television, radio). In 1975, that figure was 72%.

But overall trust doesn’t tell the whole story.

The real story lies in generational splits, and the rift is huge:

Caption: Trust in traditional media vs social media by age group

The younger someone is, the less they trust traditional media and the more they trust social media. The reverse is also true: the older the group, the more they trust traditional media and the less they trust social media.

Beyond the trust gap, there’s also a consumption gap:

Caption: Proportion of different age groups getting news via social media

Among adults under 30, 76% get news from social media at least occasionally. Among those 65 and older, only 28% (and even slightly lower than five years ago).

Trust in mass media has indeed fallen from its peak, but a big part of the story here is the change in media habits among younger generations. Compared with their elders, young people trust mass media far less, and they are also heavy users of social media as a substitute.

Returning to the original observation: the 72% media trust peak in 1975 is often remembered as the golden age of journalism. But the same fact is that, in the early 1970s, only a handful of TV networks and newspapers monopolized information supply, with almost no competition.

So there’s reason to ask: how much of that “peak” trust came from excellent journalism, and how much came from a lack of alternatives? The two don’t conflict—late 1960s to early 1970s may have had both good news and captive audiences. But it’s hard not to notice that the generation with the lowest trust in mass media grew up in an environment with the most choices.

That’s the argument Martin Gurri made in The Revolt of the Public: the collapse of information monopolies across fields (media, government, professional authorities) has exposed authority that was never truly earned. The public sees what’s behind the curtain, and trust declines.

Gurri also says the public is good at tearing down old things but not at building new things. He may be right. But at least, the funding barriers for building new media alternatives have never been this low. Whether they can rebuild trust in news will be the core story of the next decade.

Goodbye, productivity bonus

Zyn (nicotine pouches) sales have entered uncharted territory: year-over-year growth turned negative for the first time.

Caption: Zyn sales year-over-year growth rate (4-week rolling), first time negative

On a 4-week rolling basis, Zyn’s year-over-year sales growth turned negative for the first time in history, though the decline is small.

In terms of volume, Zyn is still growing. But due to a recent wave of heavy promotions, the total sales value has dipped slightly.

The productivity bonus remains intact (laughs).

One more interesting detail: Zyn’s share in the nicotine pouches market is no longer over half:

Caption: Change in Zyn’s share in the nicotine pouches market

Zyn’s market share fell below 50% at the end of last year.

[^1]: Yes, we know that comparing stock market value and GDP is a comparison of stock and flow. But the chart still looks pretty great.