Tech giants show how immune they are to coronavirus fallout

Big Tech's earnings announcements show robust gains despite the shrinking economy and skyrocketing unemployment - and this is hardly coincidental.

Published Mon, May 11, 2020 · 09:50 PM

Big Tech

A CRISIS can distract as much as it can reveal. Big Tech recently made earnings announcements: Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple. In the depths of fear and confusion, the market has shown just how immune these tech giants are to the financial fallout of Covid-19 compared to the rest of the global economy. Each has made robust gains in sales of their own, despite the shrinking economy and skyrocketing unemployment. And this is hardly coincidental.

The novel coronavirus outbreak reinforces existing trends rather than reverting any of them: firstly, software is still "eating the world"; secondly, the notion that big is still getting bigger remains strong in the platform economy, and thirdly, the government "breaking…