New York Times:

Apple has been working for years on designing chips to replace the Intel microprocessors used in Mac computers, according to five people with knowledge of the effort.

Oddly specific number. But no matter.

Apple’s move is an indication of the growing power of the biggest tech companies to expand their abilities and reduce their dependence on major partners that have provided them with services for years — even as smaller competitors and the global economy struggle because of the coronavirus pandemic.

And that’s really the core of this story.

Facebook, for example, is investing billions of dollars into one of Indonesia’s fastest-growing apps, a telecom giant in India and an undersea fiber-optic cable around Africa. Amazon has built out its own fleet of cargo planes and delivery trucks. And Google and Apple continue to buy upstarts to expand their empires.

Logical for Apple to want to own the full stack. If it was financially prudent to make all their supply-chain elements themselves, and do all the manufacturing in house, even mine all the materials they use, why wouldn’t they?

But as corporate behemoths grow, the mom and pops of the world fall by the wayside. Interesting read.