Questions for Scott Galloway, Professor, Stern School of Business, NYU

You have closely studied the companies you call ‘The Four’—Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. Which do you predict will become the world’s first trillion-dollar company?

Most people would put their money on Apple, because it’s the closest to that valuation at the moment, but I actually think it’s going to be Amazon. To date, The Four have mostly gone after befuddled prey within their respective sectors; but over the last 24 months, they’ve started to encroach on each other’s territory. And, in every instance where there has been an overlap of competition, Amazon has beat the others.

Take the case of search. Some people describe Amazon as ‘a search engine with a warehouse attached to it’. So, despite the fact that it is Google’s largest customer, it also competes with Google. In 2015, 44 per cent of searches involving a product search began on Amazon; and by 2016, that had climbed to 55 per cent. Amazon’s growth of share of relevant search for products grew 25 per cent year-over-year.

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