Subject: Re: America’s Most Valuable Companies 1995-2023
Agreed re Microsoft. It’s a hell of a business.

The cloud, enabling constant improvements without end users involved in software updates, along with beta options is accelerating product evolution. I deeply regret not buying in 2020.

One thing that concerns me about Apple, which is obviously also a great business, is the involvement in helping to facilitate screen addiction. Doesn’t sit well with Charlie Munger’s ideas around selling products you would not buy yourself. Clearly Charlie was a huge Apple fan and no doubt Apple will be a good citizen by helping users to control usage but it’s a tricky one. Tobacco for mental health. Are people going to be handing these phones to their kids in 2050?

Microsoft doesn’t have this problem in the business world and is perhaps much ‘less evil’ as its customers are doing productive work.

Always sceptical of any technology company. (After all, technology is literally innovation, which probably prevented Buffett from paying up for big technology companies. Apple was, what 10x). However, when you throw in Microsoft’s new Co-Pilot sitting in Teams and doing all kinds of powerful tasks efficiently (writing quality minutes, with action points in seconds) the next 5 years at least look very bright for Microsoft.