The trouble with cheaper and cheaper technology In 1964, the nation’s most valuable company, is that employs less people. Ford cites the example AT&T, was worth $267 billion in today’s dollars of one of their factories—a facility in Gaffney, South and employed 758,611 people. Alphabet is worth Carolina that produces 2.5 million pounds of cotton $370 billion but has only about 60,000 employees. yarn a week. It has fewer than a hundred and fifty Facebook is worth two hundred and seventy billion workers. The New York Times ran a story about * dollars and employs just thirteen thousand people . the Gaffney factory with the headline “U.S. textile plants return, with floors largely empty of people.” It’s not just that companies will be able to profit with less on staff, the companies able to harness the best talent will be able to compete in more and more categories. I sometimes joke that the… Fortune 500 is becoming the Fortune 5. 91