Bay Area's Largest 200 Public Companies Reflect the Region's Changing Economy

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Alexis Madrigal (1:11)

Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Though the Bay Area is known for technology, our region has generated many different kinds of big corporations in the past. Bank of America, Bechtel, Levi Strauss, Transamerica, Charles Schwab, Clorox, Gap. Some have left, some have been acquired or absorbed, and some are simply dwarfed by the tech titans that dominate the San Francisco Chronicle's list of the largest 200 Bay Area companies by revenue, public companies.

Here to talk to us about the list and how it differs from the last time it was created in the midst of the global financial crisis in 2009, we're joined by the story's author, Roland Lee, business reporter at San Francisco Chronicle. Welcome.

Roland Lee (1:54)

Thanks for having me.

Alexis Madrigal (1:55)

We've got Aegon Turplin, who's a regionalism fellow with California Forward, that's a non-profit that advocates for a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive economy in California. Welcome, Aegon.

Egon Turpland (2:07)

Thank you very much, good to be here.

Alexis Madrigal (2:08)

And we've got Laura Furstenthal, who's senior partner and leader for the West Region Office of McKinsey, that's a global consulting firm. Welcome, Laura.

Laura Furstenthal (2:16)

Thank you for having me.

Alexis Madrigal (2:18)

So Roland, we did a 17-year hiatus between, or the Chronicle did between these two lists. It's kind of a fascinating thing to go back, think about 2009, what was happening in the global economy at the time. You know, Nvidia was still a largely known by gamers as a graphics card company to play games.

The iPhone, barely anybody had one. What did the list look like at that time?

Roland Lee (2:47)

Yeah, it was certainly much more diversified, not just tech. The biggest company by revenue was Chevron, which is now, their headquarters has gone to Texas, but they still have some infrastructure here. But yeah, you had more retail, finance.

Tech was still big, but not the biggest component, and now it is. Yeah.

Alexis Madrigal (3:07)

I mean, when you do look at that list from years past, they were also kind of different sorts of companies too, right? I mean, there was more retail on it. There were more things that just weren't technology companies.

Roland Lee (3:25)

Yeah. I mean, I think Safeway was number five. McKesson, which was health care.

Alexis Madrigal (3:33)

They also went to Texas.

Roland Lee (3:34)

They're gone. When you had Oracle and Sun, were some of the biggest tech companies, but Oracle bought Sun, and then they moved their headquarters to Austin, and now they're moving them to Nashville. So a lot of just change and migration.

Yeah.

Alexis Madrigal (3:50)

It's interesting. I mean, there is also a lot of continuity though, right? I mean, most of the big tech companies that were around 2009, many of them are still here and are even bigger. Yeah.

Roland Lee (4:03)

Yeah. I mean, Apple, kind of the poster child, number one on the list this year.

iPhone maker just exploded in revenue. I mean, it's really changed the global zeitgeist culture, and they just had a pretty interesting transition. New CEO came in. Tim Cook had led the company since Steve Jobs' death. So big changes there. They just unveiled their new kind of three screen iPhone duo. So we'll see what happens, but they'll probably keep growing.

Alexis Madrigal (4:32)

Laura, I mean, when you look at the list as a consultant, is it basically just like tech and everything now basically? Is that just what it is? I mean, you go down Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta, OK, Wells Fargo, then Broadcom, Cisco, TD Cynics, which is a company that I really haven't thought of. It is in the top 10 by revenue, HP, Intel, Uber, Netflix, Salesforce, Visa, Super Microcomputer, Advanced Micro Devices, PayPal. I mean, this is just all tech basically.