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The big four — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google — have literally changed the face of the world economy, and are collectively responsible for creating a combined market capitalization equivalent to the GDP of India with a population the size of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

This, according to Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern, founder of L2 Inc. and author of The Four: The Hidden DNA of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, means we need to watch these four — and other potential disruptors — very closely, as they point the way toward understanding the economy as a whole and where innovation will lead us.

How Dominant Are They?

It’s easy to compare these companies to industrial powerhouses that existed at the turn of the Twentieth Century. But, if we look at them from the perspective of market share, the picture turns out a bit different.

Except for Google, which now controls 90 percent of the market for internet searches — now a larger market by dollar volume than the advertising market of any nation with the exception of the United States — Facebook, Amazon, and Apple don’t enjoy excessive market share, Galloway noted. Amazon, for example, captures around 4 percent of retail, and Apple only has 15 percent share of the phone market.

“By traditional share standards, they’re not as dominant and have competition everywhere,” Galloway noted. “But you can flip those numbers pretty easily. For example, Amazon has probably a 40 percent share of online retail, and depending on the numbers you look at, captures somewhere between a third and a half of all retail growth in the US”.

This has given Amazon tremendous leverage, and it enjoys the ability to enter nearly any space and be disruptive by virtue of the capital it can bring to bear in any sector, Galloway noted.

Does Amazon’s Profitability Matter?

Despite its huge market cap, Amazon hasn’t been profitable, in contrast to the other names in the group of four.