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# From $5tr to$10tr market cap in under 1 year

### Question

Company valuations can take off very quickly: Apple was valued at around $100 billion in mid 2007, and so it has taken the company roughly 11 years to grow its market capitalisation by a factor of ten. However, one year before it first hit$1 trillion, it was worth ~$0.8 trillion (which would have resolved a similar question negative). Amazon's rise was even more impressive. Amazon has grown from$100 bn to $1 trillion in just over 6 years. And one year before it hit$1 trillion, it was worth ~0.46 trillion (which would have resolved a similar question positive).

An important consideration in how to approach the AI alignment problem is the speed of the takeoff from massively subhuman AI to massively superhuman AI.

Paul Christiano suggests operationalising the takeoff takeoff speed of AI in terms of economic growth. That is, if there is a rapid transition from massively subhuman AI to massively superhuman AI, we would expect accelerated economic growth. One indicator of the rate of economic growth is the growth in company valuations.

Will the first publicly traded company to have a $10 trillion market cap be worth at least double what it was worth 1 year before reaching$10 trillion?

Resolution

This resolves when a company whose shares can be bought and sold on a stock exchange achieves a market capitalisation of $10 trillion (adjusted to 2018 prices), AND it was worth less than or equal to$5 trillion one year before (also in 2018 prices). The question will refer to Yahoo Finance's data, or any other reputable financial data service.

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