#14: Decode What’s Really Driving the $13T Value of the MAAG 7

[Spoiler Alert: It's NOT just the tech!] This edition of The Customer-Centric Marketer newsletter, is about myth busting — challenging the underlying premise behind the most valuable companies in the world.

The imperative to make customer experience and experiential factors equal partners to brand and product in value propositions and organic elements of the corporate success formula are seemingly self evident. Virtually every human has experienced both exceptional and terrible experiences in the daily flow of their lives and can probably understand the positive and negative emotional effects of both.

However, internalizing and operationalizing those truths in a corporate context has proven difficult for many.  Many companies are simply too inwardly focused to prioritize or even acknowledge the experience of their customers, and some simply lack the leadership,  culture,  and operational capability to do so.

What many of these companies do have is a well-honed instinct to be fast followers—essentially following what others have done. While this corporate attribute can severely limit meaningful innovation and differentiation, it s hard to argue against its effectiveness in mitigating first mover risks— follow what first movers have done, copy what works and avoid what doesn’t work can be a viable strategy for many.

So the questions become: Who should companies follow when it comes to customer-centricity and customer experience, and why?

The answer, of course, is: FOLLOW THE MONEY!

Follow the (Valuation) Money

For well over a decade, the business world, and society writ large, have watched in awe (and a healthy dose of envy and concern) as the MAAG 7— Microsoft , Apple , Amazon , Alphabet Inc. (Google), Meta , NVIDIA , and Tesla —rewrote the rules of scale, market dominance, and ultimately, enterprise value. Together, these titans of tech have amassed over $13 trillion in market cap, and they seem to still be pulling away from the pack.

We’ve all heard the explanation: analysts, investors, and pundits often point to their Silicon Valley and Seattle-style tech superiority as THE defining source of their sustained outperformance and value creation.

“It’s the tech. They’re just more innovative, faster, smarter with it.”

But what if that’s not the whole story? What if we are all getting it wrong? What if their true advantage is something far more accessible….yet still profoundly misunderstood?

Busting the MAAG 7’s Tech Myth

Let’s be clear: tech is a powerful enabler to business models and fundamental to the value proposition of the MAAG 7. But, if we are honest with ourselves, tech has largely been democratized—it’s now table stakes, isn’t it?: Mobile apps and SaaS? They’re just called “software” now. Remember cloud infrastructure? It’s just called “computing” now, and it’s widely accessible. GenAI? Although it’s still very early days, the direction of travel seems to suggest that AI tools will be relatively inexpensive, virtually open source, and made widely available. Martech stacks? Dozens of ecosystems to choose from at every price point. More tools. More platforms. More dashboards. More data. All super important, but not really differentiated or exclusive.

Behind the scenes, one of the “dirty little secrets” in the business world is how many companies during this same period—across retail, finance, healthcare, manufacturing (remember GE’s Predix initiative?) and beyond—declared themselves “tech companies”, spending billions, but ending-up not really moving the needle. As fast-followers, that declaration is rational in terms of the need for enterprise modernization. But at some level it must have been animated by senior leadership with the prospect and anticipation of capturing some of the valuation magic of the MAAG 7.

The punchline? For the MAAG 7 it was never just about “the tech”.

The “Real” Secret Sauce

When you dig below the headlines and assumptions, what the MAAG 7 have mastered and pursued relentlessly is the application of their “tech excellence” (but not especially unique!) in service of something far more powerful, more differentiating, more durable—the customer and their experience.

This isn’t about building more elaborate tech stacks to facilitate more efficient customer targeting, tracking and weaponization of digital marketing. The way the MAAG 7 deploy tech is directed, disciplined, and exists to be in service of the customer experience—at removing friction, creating differentiated value and solving real human problems at scale. This comes to life as these titans of value creation meticulously design around real customer behaviors, pursuing deep understanding in what they value, observing what their unmet needs might be.

They obsess over customer effort and barriers to value. They continuously reimagine, test, learn and optimize down to the smallest detail of every interaction, journey and end-to-end experience. Can the MAAG 7 come across as ruthlessly effective in pursuing their goals? Definitely. But they also make the customer the gravitational center of their ways of working and growth strategy. Crucially, they apply this success formula consistently in ways that integrate organically into their value propositions, and subsequently into the hearts, minds and lives of billions of humans.

This isn’t hypothetical or hyperbole. These are business model and strategic choices. It’s why the MAAG 7 aren’t just tech companies, at their core they’re the most customer-centric companies in the world—that’s the real “secret sauce”.

The Bigger Idea: Customer Excellence = Enterprise Value

While many companies are still stuck in philosophical debates about the value of customer-centricity and experience—living in arbitrary functional silos that deliver fragmented experiences to customers, robotically measuring the “usual suspects” of uninspiring engagement and sentiment metrics, and reacting to customer pain points after the fact. While these activities have come to be defining elements of the customer experience “brand”, they’re “small ball” when compared to what the MAAG 7 are achieving:

Transformational enterprise value creation through Customer Excellence.

Customer Excellence is the missing umbrella discipline—a strategic, enterprise-level capability that first unifies the historically fragmented functions of customer engagement, customer experience management, customer success, and customer care. It exists to eliminate the brand-eroding gaps and high-risk handoffs that persist across customer journeys.

Next, Customer Excellence transforms customer-centricity and customer experience from an aspiration into deeply differentiating strategic assets and operating system—not just in customer-facing functions, but as the connective fabric across marketing, sales, the full commercial model and the broader organization. Finally, through the integration of brand, product, and experiential factors into one cohesive value proposition, it turns every interaction into an opportunity to earn Customer Love, deliver the Preference Payoff, and unlock outsized financial returns.

So, the MAAG 7 doesn’t invest in excellence in customer-centricity and customer experience because it’s trendy or “nice to have.” They do it because those building blocks are fundamental to their value propositions—and their super successful valuation engines.

The proof is in the numbers

The thesis being advanced here is that the delta in valuation is not just a tech premium. It’s a Customer Excellence premium. The average P/E ratio of the MAAG 7 exceeds 44x, while the S&P 500 averages ~20x—and most legacy industries trade between 8–15x.

Let’s break their deep commitments to Customer Excellence down with real enterprise valuation data:

The message is clear: You can optimize your email click rate all day long, but unless you’re building structural and systemic, experience-led differentiation into your company’s business model, you’re not really going to move the needle or separate from the pack.

Origin Story and DNA-Level Stuff

These days, nearly every CEO claims to be customer-centric and readily espouse the importance of customer experience. In all-hands meetings, earnings calls, and interviews with investors, you’ll hear confident declarations like, “We put the customer at the center,” or “Customer experience is our top priority.” These statements are now expected. They signal alignment with contemporary business expectations and sound great on video, in quarterly earnings transcripts, and in annual reports.

But too often, they remain at the surface—superficial statements of aspiration, detached from operational realities.

Beneath the shiny language of honorable intentions, far too many companies are still running on old machinery: siloed org structures and decision-making, tech-first transformation, company-centric product and brand messaging—profoundly internally-focused mindsets designed around “inside baseball”, rather than customer lives. Boards of Directors, CEOs, and senior leaders who speak about customer-centricity and customer experience, without committing to structural and systemic change—without transforming operating models, governance, incentives, and investment priorities—are not building a Customer Excellence Enterprise.

They’re performing one, and fooling no one.

The problem is that this surface-level rhetoric creates a dangerous illusion of progress. The liberal use of customer-centric language without structural change actually distracts from the serious, rigorous—structural and systemic—work required to pursue Customer Excellence as an organizing principle.

In contrast, the world’s most valuable companies—Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, Tesla—didn’t bolt on customer-centricity as a late-stage initiative. They embedded it into their DNA. It was there at the origin or the basis of a corporate rebirth ( e.g. Microsoft). It’s not just a strategy—it’s a belief system.

[NOTE: In today’s polarized political climate, it should be noted that mentioning these founders/CEOs is for the specific purpose of illustrating the point of this edition and should not be mistaken as an endorsement of any political or societal positions!]

• Jeff Bezos left an empty chair in meetings to represent the customer, institutionalizing the customer in Amazon’s decision-making.
• Steve Jobs obsessed over end-to-end user experience and simplicity—turning product usage into brand loyalty.
• Elon Musk dismantled the traditional dealership model, turning Tesla’s experience into a lifestyle.
• Satya Nadella reoriented Microsoft’s entire culture toward empathy, accessibility, and enabling users—not just selling software.
• Larry and Sergey built Google to make the world’s information universally accessible—and relentlessly relevant.
• Mark Zuckerberg scaled human connection into the fabric of digital life through intuitive experience design.
• Jensen Huang of NVIDIA didn’t just sell processors—he empowered game creators, scientists, and developers with experiences that unlocked potential.

So the questions aren’t: “Can we afford to become customer-centric? “Should we pursue becoming a Customer Excellence Enterprise?”

The better question is: Can you afford not to—when the world’s most valuable companies already are?

What CMOs, Marketers, and CX Pros Can Do

Although they are adept at fast following, many companies remain stuck or simply unconvinced…unable to see what is really needed to replicate the value creation power of the MAAG 7. Urged on by consultants and orthodoxy, many companies will undoubtedly double-down on what they think is the secret sauce by adding even more layers and appendages to their tech stack. After all, doing complicated, expensive AI, digital and martech projects can seem promising, like progress is just around the corner at the next go-live date.

But, alas there is disappointment and a bit of disbelief when the new tech works perfectly as advertised, but somehow nothing really changes, the needle doesn’t really move. Well, the next tech project will definitely do it…”just one more…”

This collective delusion is why CMOs, marketers, and CX professionals must break their companies out of this pattern and disrupt the entrenched mindsets that are distractions from the real work that needs to be done:

They must catalyze and lead a fundamental transformation—not as a department initiative, but as an enterprise rebellion.

Why? As the functions closest to the customer, they are uniquely positioned at the intersection of brand, customer understanding, and commercial performance.

They see the disconnect between what companies say and how they behave. Led by the CMOs seat at the adult table as the de facto chief customer officer, they have the data, insight, and influence to bridge that gap. But to do so, they too must stop settling for campaign and tech stack-driven solutions, sprint meetings and dashboard debates. They must turn leadership intent into enterprise conviction—mobilizing teams and reshape priorities around The Customers Right to Reverence. They must craft and hardwire company-specific Customer Excellence principles and Experience Delivery Systems into the business model and success formula.

Most importantly, they must hold all levels and all corners of the company accountable for delivering on this elevated level of customer reverence.

As introduced in The Customer Excellence Enterprise, and reinforced every edition of The Customer-Centric Marketer newsletter, institutionalizing Customer Excellence and taking it into the marketplace as a brand narrative and value creation engine at this level doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when companies invest in building and continuously improving the experience delivery system needed to deliver on it—consistently, at scale, and by design.

For CMOs, marketers, and CX pros, the time is now. They must come together, stop playing defense or sitting on the sidelines. They must actively (if not zealously!) lead an enterprise-wide rebellion—One that rewires how decisions are made, how products are designed, how journeys are orchestrated, how brands show up in crowded and noisy markets, and how value is created, measured and recognized. Specifically, one that facilitates companies through through five structural shifts:

• SHIFT #1. From Tangible to Intangible Value Exchange to account for how customers/consumers are purchasing
• SHIFT #2. From a Campaign-Centric to Customer-Centric Marketing Model
• SHIFT #3. Experiential Factors as Equal Partners to Product and Brand Factors in Value Propositions.
• SHIFT #4. Evolving from a Transactional to a Relationship-Based Mindset
• SHIFT #5. Delivering Value Across the Entire Customer Lifecycle—from funnel to flywheel commercial models.

This agenda becomes the new foundation of brand differentiation, preferential positions in the hearts, minds, and lives of customers, long-term loyalty, and yes—any reasonable chance of driving outsized and sustained enterprise value creation. Success formula works and the MAAG 7 prove it quarter after quarter. This isn’t just a transformation—it’s a rebellion redefining how modern businesses create value.

That’s the real work. It’s time for the bold, The Provocateurs, to lead it.

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Meet the Author

Wayne Simmons is a global customer experience and commercial leader, former Inc. 500 awarded founder, and professor of practice at Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business. Wayne is also the lead author of “The Customer Excellence Enterprise: A Playbook for Creating Customers for Life” (Wiley, 2024). As a hands-on player/coach, Wayne brings real-world expertise from Bayer, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, Mercer, and his current role as a Global Customer Excellence Lead in the Chief Marketing Office of Pfizer. His expertise is in bringing customer-centricity and customer experience to enterprise or global scale, turning them into the deeply differentiating strategic and commercial assets that consistently generate Customer Love, the Preference Payoff and outsized financial rewards.