Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge
2021 is in the rearview mirror, but the year’s final reckoning didn’t come until the past week — at least where Wall Street is concerned. Major companies ranging from Apple and Google to Netflix and Tesla all announced their earnings for the holiday quarter — and, as has been the case for more or less the last decade-plus of history, Big Tech made Big Bucks.
But taken in total, 2021 looks like a different year, even by Big Tech company standards. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the fluctuating economy and job market, supply chain issues, semiconductor shortages, and other socioeconomic issues, major tech firms didn’t just manage to scrape out some tiny margins of revenue last year: they more or less broke the bank with some of the…
