Just days after e-commerce kingpin Amazon hit $1,000 per share, Alphabet — the parent company of Google, the online ad behemoth and Android developer — cracked the milestone during Monday trading.
With a market cap of nearly 700 billion, Alphabet is firmly entrenched as the world’s second largest technology company, behind Apple. Its shares are up more than 25 percent since the start of the year.
The company’s run is unsurprisingly due in large part to its command of online search and advertisements. Last week TheWrap noted from the latest “Meeker internet report” that Alphabet continues to dominate the space, combining with Facebook to account for 85 percent of growth in internet advertising.
Alphabet’s ad revenue jumped about 20 percent from 2015 to 2016, pulling in more than $35 billion in ad sales.
Still, Alphabet’s strength extends beyond merely ads. More than 80 percent of the 432 million smartphones sold last quarter ran on Android’s platform, and Alphabet is betting on a myriad of industries — from self-driving cars to artificial intelligence.
At a share price of $1,000, many investors would anticipate a stock split. Since going public in 2004, Alphabet has split once, in 2014. And just FYI, if you were smart enough to invest $1,000 in Google when it first went public, you’re investment would be worth more than $20,000 today.
Beyond Amazon and Google, the only other S&P 500 company with a price tag above $1,000 is Priceline.
7 Rad Projects Elon Musk Has Worked On (Photos)
Elon Musk has been at the forefront of Silicon Valley innovation for two decades. The South Africa-born entrepreneur has been linked to a number of high-profile, intriguing ventures... so let's take a look.
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Pay Pal
Musk made his initial fortune thanks to PayPal, which he sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. He made a cool $165 million off the deal.
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Tesla Motors
Instead of buying an island and living the high life after the PayPal sell, Musk went to work on getting the world off its dependency on oil. He founded Tesla Motors (now Tesla Inc.) in 2003, taking over an old Toyota-General Motors manufacturing plant in the Bay Area. The slick electric cars can travel 250 miles without a charge and sell for upwards of $100,000. Its "mass" car, the Model 3, is due out in 2018.
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Space X
Perhaps the project most important to Musk is SpaceX. Founded in 2002, the rocket company has worked with NASA on several launches. SpaceX made history when it developed "recycled" rockets that are able to be launched, landed and reused. Even more ambitious, Musk wants to send manned missions to Mars within the next decade... and colonize the red planet.
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Hyperloop
Musk frequently travels back and forth between NorCal and SoCal, and he wants to do it quickly. Enter Hyperloop, where passengers will be put in pods and shot through tubes connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles at speeds of up to 760 miles per hour. Musk sketched the concept in 2013, and it's now being pursued by a group in L.A. full-time.
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Neuralink
Musk is also big on artificial intelligence and hopes to find a way to directly connect humans to machines. That's where his Neuralink comes in. Co-founded by Musk in 2016, the company aims to integrate our minds with AI advancements via chip implants.
Via @nbashaw on Twitter
The Boring Company
The Boring Company aims to alleviate traffic by building an underground network of tunnels. Cars would be able to latch on to giant sleds and zip through tunnels at 125 mph or passengers can take futuristic glass buses if they want.
The Boring Company
SolarCity
Founded by Musk's cousins in 2006, SolarCity is the second-largest provider of solar panels in the USA. Musk owned 22 percent of its shares when Tesla bought-out the company for more than $2.5 billion in 2016.
Tesla Inc.
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The real-life Tony Stark is the poster boy for Silicon Valley entrepreneurship
Elon Musk has been at the forefront of Silicon Valley innovation for two decades. The South Africa-born entrepreneur has been linked to a number of high-profile, intriguing ventures... so let's take a look.