By market cap, no company has ever been worth $4 trillion, but Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is starting to get close. As of this writing, Nvidia is worth around $3.6 trillion. At this size, it only needs to increase in value by another 11% before crossing this threshold. This is important because second-ranked Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which needs to rise 16% in value to beat Nvidia, was the first company to cross the market cap thresholds of $1 trillion, $2 trillion and 3 trillion dollars. For those who care about these financial metrics, the central question is: Can Nvidia reach the next valuation milestone before Apple? Nvidia and Apple have taken two different paths to get to this point. Apple has steadily grown its revenue and profits from its various consumer products (most notably the iPhone), although that growth has slowed significantly in recent years.Continue readingMore articles on MotleyFool More articles on MotleyFool