Big Oil Faded. Will Big Tech?

Image: Lydia Ortiz. Article by Shira Ovide.

Not that long ago, it was American oil powers — not tech giants — that ruled the economy and influenced world events.

Less than a decade ago, Exxon Mobil was the most valuable company in the world. On Monday, it’s being kicked out of the Dow Jones industrial average after nearly a century of inclusion in the stock index.

I’m mentioning an energy company in a technology newsletter for two reasons: First, as wild as it feels to have a handful of American technology superpowers rule the economy and the stock market and influence world events, oil superpowers like Exxon were in a similar position not very long ago.

And second, while it’s hard to imagine Big Tech losing relevance, most people didn’t predict that demand for fossil fuels would start to wane, until it did. That’s part of the sweeping changes that ushered out the era of Big Oil and started the Big Tech age. Today all of Exxon is worth less than Jeff Bezos. […]

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