
Amazon, Facebook and Google can all be beaten - monsieurpng
https://medium.com/lightspeed-venture-partners/why-amazon-facebook-and-google-can-all-be-beaten-f2b3ee48feaf
======
lubujackson
I think the most surprising vulnerability for Google is web search. Google has
been pushing away from web search for years now, with moves like AMP, vertical
searches and quick answers that keep you on their domain.

If you look at the mission statement for their search team it is now something
like "answer your questions" \- which is great 90% of the time, but what no
longer exists (with most people not realizing) is a good general search engine
for the WEB, meaning the collection of websites out there.

There is no longer a sense of serendipity or of finding a cool new website,
and maybe finding web pages on the web is just a nostagic thing with no real
benefit, but there's no doubt that Google has moved away from that as real
objective. The reality is that the web has become overwhelmed by listicles and
minimum pages that go one inch past Google's definition of spam, but otherwise
muck up the web. It would be amazing for a search engine to sift past all that
cruft and low-effort material to find actually interesting and unique content.

In a way, simply by not being Google is already an advantage because everyone
is catering to Google. If you use a different standard you can easily get
different results - it's just a matter if those would be useful for anyone?
Everyone mostly wants to see the "right" answer and Google has conditioned us
to expect it.

~~~
tspike
If someone nailed discussion search, I'd have no use for Google for 90% of my
searching. As it is, most of my searches are a series of:

site:<reddit/ycombinator/stackoverflow/tripadvisor/random niche forum.com>
"something someone interested in the same question/topic would say"

.. all in an attempt to filter over-commercialized bullshit. There's an
opportunity here for a startup to capture an audience hungry for real
information and leverage them into becoming the next hub for over-
commercialized bullshit.

~~~
ehnto
That's been the most annoying part of search for a while now. Most searches
result in hyper commercialised results, with SEO heavy sites winning out, and
of course SEO heavy sites are going to be sites selling you stuff.

If you're searching for a real human's thoughts on a particular mountain bike
for one example, it will be nothing but product pages. Add in the word Reviews
and you get the productized review sites. Even searching for "Best trails in
{my area}" gives me an ecommerce site's blog laden with product links and not-
so-subtle sells.

Want to read a discussion about a book? Google will only show you product
pages with review sections on the first page, on the next page the search
results have already devolved into unrelated nonsense or spin sites.

It's hard to find the humans on the internet through all the commercial pages.
I can't blame Google entirely of course, they are helped by the SEO industry's
incessant bombardment in the 2010ish era that filled the web with so much
pointless crap, and the ongoing efforts of e-commerce stores with deep pockets
to be the only heard voice for particular subjects.

~~~
putonyourshoes
Hey, I work on Google search. For any of the search queries you mentioned,
would you be able to share examples of webpages you would have rather seen in
the results?

~~~
speedplane
If you want a specific example, here's one that came up in the news recently.
Try searching for "rasberry ketones", a nutritional supplement. It's filled
with hyper tuned SEO pages with very little content. Many suggest they are
informational, but are really article/adverts tuned for search engines. Even
those that appear on ostensibly legit websites have ridiculously click-baity
titles like "What They Don’t Want You to Know About Raspberry Ketones", which
in my mind raises red flags that BS is ahead.

If you read a newspaper, you clearly know when someone is trying to sell you
something, but on Google search, you don't. I don't mind being marketed to,
but I would like to know when I'm marketed to, and the vast majority of google
results are organic search marketing.

~~~
putonyourshoes
Interesting, thanks. Did you ever manage to find better-quality material on
raspberry ketones that you think should have been in the search results
instead?

~~~
speedplane
Yes, I did, although it took quite some time.

~~~
putonyourshoes
Would you mind sharing a link or two?

------
joshvm
Amazon is in a weird place right now. In the recent past, Amazon was _the_
place to get stuff online - cheaper than most places and Prime shipping was a
big win. I don't think they're going anywhere, but there's still an awful lot
of stuff you can't buy on there, or is difficult to find.

Now some departments are getting more like Etsy - a Shenzhen marketplace. This
is good, because there's a lot of random stuff you can get that you don't need
to import. It's also bad because it's virtually impossible to know what you
should buy if you don't know the brand reputation (and that matters to you).

Take 'usb cable' for example, have a look:
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-
alias...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-
alias%3Daps&field-keywords=usb+cable)

Brands include Rephoenix, Luoriz, Ugreen, Syncwire, RAVPower, Rankie,
Benestellar, Onson, Jecent, Emmabin, Brightsnow, Maxteck, choetech, Volutz,
Kinps, the list goes on. I got to page 3 before I gave up.

What about headphones? Mpow, OneOdio, BienSound, Alihen, Sephia, ZIYE, Sadon,
OMORC, etc.

I'm genuinely curious as to when sellers decided that they _must_ have a brand
name for every product, and to hell with the meaning. It's like they all read
those "how to sell on Amazon by importing" tutorials.

Even though deep down I know that they're probably just as good as anything
you can buy on the high street, the sheer volume of random brands is really
off-putting to me for some reason. A bigger problem is that you can miss stuff
in the noise - e.g. if you didn't know that Anker have a good reputation,
could you tell the difference from any of the other names in that list? Seller
churn is also high, so it's not like you can rely on reviews either - that
product might be gone in a month.

On a brighter note it really highlights how much you're being ripped off when
you buy from a 'name brand' company that's just rebadging stuff from China.

~~~
justboxing
> the sheer volume of random brands is really off-putting to me for some
> reason

Your example of 'usb cable' is a very good one for highlighting this problem.
You are seeing so many brands because of an army of "Amazon Associates
Sellers" / FBA - Fullfilled by Amazon Sellers ( I like to refer to them as
scam artists) who identify various electronic gadgets, household items, and
other things that are in demand, that are light (so cheap to ship) and that
are available in bulk in Alibaba or Alibaba Express. They simply slap on their
brand logo / name on packaging, pay a few select reviewers to do a 5-star
review on amazon and make a whole bunch of sale.

So in essence, the chances are that these 10+ brands you are seeing for 'usb
cable' are all sourcing the same exact 'Made in China' product from the same
factory in China through Alibaba. Do a search for 'Strawberry corer' and
you'll see what I mean :)

This is a very real problem that amazon has been very slow to resolve.

There are even Fiverr gigs that do the product research for cheap. Source:
[https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/amazon-fba](https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/amazon-
fba)

~~~
ikeboy
Where is the problem? Should selling imported generic goods on Amazon only be
allowed for major brands? That would make the cost go up as there would be
less competition.

~~~
1_2__4
You don’t see a problem with users being completely unable to predict with any
accuracy how good the quality of what they’re buying is?

~~~
ikeboy
If being able to predict quality without spending time reading the reviews is
important, buy a name brand and pay twice the price.

~~~
joshvm
Careful with that - there's another saying: buy cheap, buy twice.

Amazon reviews are a pretty bad indicator of quality. You often need to make
educated gueses about whether the reviewer knows what they're talking about,
whether their standards are the same as yours, whether they're a shill (which
is very common on off-brand items), whether the review actually reflects the
product and isn't referring to the shipping or customer servie experience,
etc.

------
myf01d
Personally I wish Facebook to be destroyed, it's kind of a psychological
cancer. I also guess Amazon can't be destroyed unless with a series of defeats
within a very long period, it may be transformed into another Microsoft or IBM
at worst but it won't be destroyed.

~~~
throwaway613834
I wish someone could make Facebook get closer to becoming a strictly positive
addition to people's lives. If it merely gets destroyed then something would
just substitute it. It's already in a position to do anything it practically
wants, and there's a lot of good that _could_ come of it... all it needs is a
clear mind and willpower.

~~~
scjody
What if the substitute was specifically created to be as positive an addition
as possible, with built in tools designed to help boost users' willpower and
help them grow?

I'm not sure how viable such a thing would be given that most of facebook's
negative aspects are a direct result of them monetizing the platform as much
as possible. But I think it's worth thinking about!

------
cocktailpeanuts
"How did Snapchat beat Facebook to the youth market over the last few years?
(Remember Poke?). How did Facebook beat Google in social media in the early
2000s? (Remember Orkut?) How did Google beat Yahoo and Microsoft in search?"

1\. It wasn't Facebook who beat Google. It was Google who lost to Facebook.

2\. It wasn't Google who beat Yahoo and Microsoft. It was Microsoft and Yahoo
who lost to Google.

3\. Lastly, Snapchat LOST to Facebook. I don't know where he even pulls this
out of.

Unlike his takeaway which is nonsense and will probably make you waste years
trying to make something stupid happen, here's my takeaway--which is actually
opposite of what he'saying--that's much more helpful:

Don't try to fight against a giant in their own turf. As Snapchat, you will
never beat Facebook in their own game, Social. As Google, you will never beat
Facebook in their own game, Social (This goes both ways. There have been many
rumors about Facebook entering search engine arena, but that will never work).
Microsoft and Yahoo (A portal whose business model used to be opposite to
Google's) can never beat Google in its own game.

The lesson is, play your own game. Don't play into these VCs telling you it's
ok to make these stupid attempts. In their eyes, you the founder is just a
number. And even if so, this is a terrible advice because there are so many
other ways you can win "against" google, facebook, amazon--You simply don't
play against them. Google "beat" Microsoft by dominating their own category.
Facebook "beat" Google by dominating their own category.

And lastly, Snapchat couldn't "beat" Facebook because they decided to follow
stupid advice like this guy gave and fight against Facebook instead of
dominating its own category. It had potential at first to invent a
differentiated category of its own but went off rails becoming just another
social media app, which Facebook then swiftly copied.

~~~
davidiach
Snap is not a clear case of failing. Sure, they did not displace Facebook, but
the founders and investors made a lot of money and while it isn't growing as
fast as it should, it is still growing every day.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
If you count how much the founders or investors made from the IPO as a measure
of success of the company itself, I really can't help you there buddy.

~~~
chii
So what is a measure of success?

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
Simple. Either revenue/profit or growth. That's all there is.

If your business model is network based, you can go for "grow now, monetize
later" model. Then you need growth even if it means revenue sacrifice.

If your business model is not network based, then revenue/profit.

In case of Snapchat, they made personal gains for the founders and the VCs,
but from company point of view, they don't make no money, their growth has
stalled. The industry #1 has exactly the same app with larger user base and
faster growth.

I can't think of a single reason why this would fall into a success category.
If anything, the founders and VCs cashing out so much when the company is
dying indicates failure rather than success.

------
ImSkeptical
This article doesn't inspire much faith in me as a reader. The first example
of a start up beating a tech giant is Snap competing with Facebook. Snap did
well for a while, but things are looking grim last I heard. Likewise, the
author, in the comments, suggests that the big three priorities of Amazon are
AWS, Groceries, and Prime. Seems to be forgetting the two largest categories
of Amazon's business - foreign and domestic retail markets. Omissions like
that make question the rigor of the analysis over all.

Speaking of being able to focus on three things, why? Why that number? Isn't
Amazon, for example, competing in Cloud computing, e Books, retail, tablets,
content, groceries, home assistants, advertising, and probably a few other
major categories? Likewise Microsoft has game consoles, office, cloud
offerings, Windows, search, and again, other areas.

I think the thesis, that you can compete with tech giants, is true, but the
analysis of the article is brief and poor. The reason you can compete with
tech giants is because they are looking for a way to grow their gigantic
companies and so they will forgo relatively small markets even if they are
promising. I would not bet on your startup to beat Amazon in making budget
tablets, or Apple in making premium ones, but if you can identify a niche with
a customer that needs to be served you can outcompete major companies because
they won't be willing to focus on that niche.

For example, you can't make a better budget or premium tablet, but maybe you
make a tablet that floats to serve fishermen. It's a hit, so you work on
connecting it to their fish finders, now you're building custom sonar sensors
because your brand has a reputation and you want to add features to the
tablet. Before you know it, you have a self-driving boat, and you're entering
the shipping market automating the work formerly done by seamen. With a big
presence in shipping you use your connections in China to start up your own
retail website, and now you can compete with Amazon directly because you can
arrange cheaper shipping of goods from China to US marketplaces.

I also do think there is some validity to the article's point that you'll be
competing against the C team. I'd add on to it that as a startup you'll be
more agile. If you're competing against a tech giant they'll be held up by a
lot of bureaucracy that won't afflict you. You can match their dev team for
competence, move faster, and compete in spaces where they won't want to
follow. That's how you won against big companies, not because they are
magically limited to paying attention to three areas.

~~~
dingaling
> forgetting the two largest categories of Amazon's business - foreign and
> domestic retail markets

I don't buy much on Amazon nowadays but on about 50% of times when I do go
there to buy a non-book product it has been reclassified as "Prime-only"

Normally that passes after a week or so but it does show that Amazon is
prepared to sacrifice spontaneous retail sales in order to promote Prime.

~~~
dageshi
Gonna be honest, Prime is incredible for me, I live in the UK and anything
Prime comes literally next day, very few if any other stores can literally
deliver next day. It's always a day for dispatch and a day for delivery. And
Prime items are still considerably cheaper than what I can buy locally, if I
can even find the item locally at all.

------
notaboutdave
The problem never was that they can't be beaten. The problem is that they buy
all the competition. Great if you're being bought, not so much if you're a
part of society.

~~~
adventured
Not everyone can be bought. Walmart is booming massively online right now.
They've got $15 billion per year in net income to play with (7x that of
Amazon), nearly half a trillion in sales, hilariously more cash flow than
Amazon, as well as having 3x the retail sales of Amazon. And with the current
version of Amazon on the scene, Walmart is unleashed to behave competitively
in a way they haven't been able to in two decades (while Amazon is in the
exact opposite position due to emotion / fear of their potential; Amazon will
increasingly be watched for anti-competitive abuses).

As it stands right now, Amazon has a very serious problem brewing with
Walmart's online business. It's the only serious competitive threat Amazon has
seen in the last 10-15 years. Instead of seeing contracting sales, Walmart's
overall retail business is actually holding its ground; and at that scale,
it's an extraordinary thing; their same store sales growth has been positive
for 13 straight quarters, even as Amazon has grown vastly larger in the last
3-5 years. Amazon is taking share from other retailers and they're failing to
strike a meaningful blow to their biggest retail threat.

~~~
snarf21
Which is why them buying Jet.com just to get Marc Lore was a very reasonable
bet. He hates Amazon as well and now has the resources to fight them. Look at
all the acquisitions they have made into brands in the last year. It is always
great to have three competitors in a space but two is better than one (like
Comcast in most markets).

------
junkscience2017
a frontal assault on any of these will prove futile...ask Snap, ask Jet.com
(who wisely got acquired before Amazon could be bothered to vaporize then)

they're still rising...but even if they stopped rising, they have amassed the
financial resources of nations, and they have the credit to borrow much more.
Apple in particular is basically a G8 nation...their cash pile may literally
span centuries and they may actually need to hedge against the expiration of
the governments whose currency they hold. unlike oil, we will not "run out" of
data...these companies will eventually dwarf anything from the industrial age

if you want to "beat" them, (what does that even mean?) do what Elon Musk is
doing and create new markets and industries

~~~
manigandham
Jet.com was basically engineered to be sold, never was a serious contender.

------
jv22222
It's a bit arbitrary to say that a company is only good at three things.

Also, the bad hiring A -> B -> C players only makes sense if the "three
things" are all in the same business domain because then the A listers from
the same domain are used up.

But, when Google is doing things like Android, Self Driving Cars, Youtube,
Glucose Sensing Contact Lenses etc. Each domain is different and interesting
enough to attract top talent. (When we say Google, we mean Alphabet, right?)

Amazon is such a wild thing and always iterating on new ideas (Alexa, AWS,
Etc) I highly doubt they will be limited to "3" things. Also, Amazon have a
great trick of commercializing all the services they create for themselves,
which seems like it will just keep adding hedges and more surface area of
revenue.

Microsoft, still huge. Sure they didn't win search but they have so many other
strings to their bow (Xbox, Surface, Windows, etc)

Funny thing is, Microsoft didn't exactly own the search market and then "get
beaten" by Google. Google just aced that from the get go and essentially
created that market growth by making it possible to search the web so well.

Slack is a great example of how that works. There were lots of players making
team chat and the market was not so huge. Then along comes Slack and makes
something that is a delight and useful for many people, so much so, that it
creates a new outsized market that didn't quite exist in that way before.

So, rather than "get beaten" I think the most likely scenario is that new
players will continue to come along and create versions of "products that
don't suck" and as a result markets that were once small will, all of a
sudden, become huge.

I also think blockchain, right now, is like the internet was in say, 1998, and
there will be some huge companies emerging from that tech.

~~~
krawut
> I also think blockchain, right now, is like the internet was in say, 1998,
> and there will be some huge companies emerging from that tech.

Why do so many people seem to think this? As someone with a background in
crypto, I just don't see the resemblance. Blockchains are useful for proof-of-
work and Merkle Trees give you a way to compress many individual signatures,
but those things are inherently made for distributed decision making and this
comes with a lot of overhead. The exact opposite of what a corporation needs.

~~~
jv22222
In the same way that one couldn't have predicted Facebook or Airbnb by looking
at TCP/IP and HTTP in 1998, I think it's difficult to predict where the
blockchain and associated technologies and concepts will take us. The point is
it's a substantial new layer and has a lot of potential.

------
natural219
I got so excited from the title. I also want Amazon, Facebook, and Google to
be beaten. I am however _not_ excited about just another hypergrowth-driven,
capture-the-whole-market-or-die, walled garden, more-of-the-same traditional
startup. I want the _forms_ of these companies to die, and a patchwork economy
of more medium-sized firms each providing a piece of the puzzle without trying
to capture the whole thing.

That's just me, though.

------
spunker540
While I appreciate the optimism of the post, I think it doesn't matter so much
if Google gets beaten when it comes to "C team priorities". Google search is
still unbeatable and still gives Google a giant advantage over startups in
many areas besides search. To steal an example from the EU: flight price
aggregation.

~~~
Eridrus
I don't think Google is unbeatable at Search. I think Amazon's Alexa is a real
threat. They don't need to be better than Google as long as they're can be
good enough and convenient. Though it's also worth noting that what make
Google money is commercial search, which is a niche you could theoretically
win in one vertical at a time.

~~~
jacksmith21006
Alexa is awful for search as in answering questions and when you include
mobile it has a tiny share compared to Siri and the Google Assistant.

But Google keeps adding at a rate it will be very difficult to compete. It is
a moving target. The latest is Google Lens. Basically adding a new type of
image search that will be tough to compete with as the resources and
algorithms necessary will be tough to match.

~~~
Eridrus
I think Siri is a good example of how vulnerable Google is. As of this year
it's powered by Google, but until then it was powered by Bing and Google is
paying billions of dollars a year for the privilege of being Siri's backend.

------
sillysaurus3
Here's an example of how to beat Facebook:

Make a social network for children. Facebook has too much political inertia to
be trusted with such a thing.

Then, as those children grow, continue to come out with services useful to
them. They have to be new enough and cool enough that the kids will switch to
the new service as they get older.

If you can manage to make your service useful throughout all stages of a
person's life, starting with childhood, then you can eventually displace
Facebook by refusing to sell.

It won't be easy, and it would take a decade. But it's doable.

You may question the ethics. That's valid. Unfortunately, ethical questions
tend to go out the window: Every time a technology becomes possible, it seems
to be _inevitable_. Bitcoin is a perfect example.

Either you build this, or someone else might. And if you care about the
ethics, this is an opportunity to build something less draconian than Facebook
from first principles.

~~~
kristianov
I see an interesting parallel in this side of the Great Fire Wall. You know
Tencent has its WeChat which nowadays requires identification and cell phone
number to use due to Gov. policies. This discourages WeChat's usage in
teenagers and children. To cover that front, Tencent actually uses its other
IM product, QQ, and caters more for the children's needs.

------
ctdonath
Over 4 decades I've watched many unbeatable high-tech juggernauts disappear
practically overnight. These will be no different, including the relentless
claims of "but it's different this time!" for each one.

~~~
nabla9
Worlds largest ICT companies by revenue, category and year founded:

    
    
      1.  [2] Apple (1976) 
      2.  [2] Samsung (1969)  
      3.  [4] Amazon.com (1994) 
      4.  [2] Foxconn (1974) 
      5.  [4] Alphabet Inc. (1998) 
      6.  [2] Microsoft (1975) 
      7.  [1] Hitachi (1910) 
      8.  [1] IBM (1911) 
      9.  [3] Huawei (1987) 
      10. [1] Sony (1946) 
      11. [1] Panasonic (1918) 
      12. [3] Dell (1984) 
      13. [2] Intel (1968) 
      14. [1] Hewlett Packard (1939)  
    

Apple revenue $229.2B, Hewlett Packard $50B. (FYI: Facebook revenue is just
$30B)

categories:

[1] old electronics, 70-100 years old companies.

[2] founded few years before or after the invention of microprocessor (1971)

[3] founded at the dawn of the PC era (80s)

[4] founded at the dawn of the internet era (90s)

From each revolution few companies may eventually join the list, but the old
rule.

~~~
Cyph0n
I'm honestly surprised that Hitachi is even on that list!

~~~
nabla9
Only 30% of Hitachi revenue comes from ICT and electronics.

Their consulting and services business sell mostly to Japan. Electronics
division is very specialized. Semiconductor processing equipment, test and
measurement and so on.

------
adamnemecek
I can actually imagine a new search engine. The thing about google is that
it’s not power user friendly. Give me some query language. And let me somehow
search for things related to the swift language without getting results about
the singer.

~~~
homarp
Power users don't watch ads, as they have ad blockers.

~~~
adamnemecek
Make me pay then. Like by giving me more power, I'm reducing the expectations
on the product. I dont want magic, I want power.

~~~
jabretti
If I'm going to pay for search it's better be a _lot_ better than google. And
google has a twenty year head start and a gazillion dollars and can rapidly
implement any clever feature you might think of.

~~~
adamnemecek
Can they? They won’t touch the interface whatsoever. Also a lot of times I
care only about a subset of the internet. Google won’t let me specify what
subset.

~~~
jjeaff
1\. Ban eHow (and the few other sites like it.

2\. Ban any site that shows different content to the Google bot vs the user.
(looking at you Quora, with your login required to read, Pinterest...)

3\. Ban all the myriad of sites that do nothing but list out every possible
phone number or random words. AI should have no trouble detecting those.

4\. Ban all the sites that do nothing but copy content wholesale from other
sites. I thought they had a duplicate content penalty, but it doesn't seem to
work.

Do those simple things and you've just made Google search 10x better.

------
noncoml
And then what? There was a time that we thought MS could not be beaten. It
did. And now we have Google and FB. Are they any better? Why do you think the
ones who will beat FB and Google will be better?

If anything, I expect them to be worst, as SV tech geeks are being replaced by
power and money seeking individuals.

~~~
tehlike
MS is still kicking.

~~~
esturk
The parent post didn't say MS is dead just that it was beaten and indeed it
was. MS was thought to be unbeatable as the "consumer facing OS". But mobile
OSes came about from an entirely new market (this being mobile) that
supplanted the desktop in consumer's daily lives.

~~~
junkscience2017
Who beat Microsoft in what? Microsoft's primary business is Windows. Who has
beaten Windows? Obviously new businesses have been born that Microsoft would
love to own...but so far, there has still been no successful assault on the
main business

~~~
esturk
Who: Apple and Google What: Enter a new Market that 'was' supplanting an
existing market

I'm not sure what you meant by business here. Windows is a product from MS
which is segmented by different markets. There's a business need and a
consumer facing need. It got beat in the latter. It also didn't move fast
enough to reach the mobile market so it got beat in speed as well.

The consumer facing product has been assaulted. Consumers are buying PCs, and
by extension Windows, less. MS was impacted and Ballmer resigned. That was the
whole pivot to the Cloud by Satya. All this is common knowledge.

------
mankash666
The more relevant question is "can your startup succeed?" Google's C product
is another big incumbent's A product. For your startup to succeed, you often
times need to beat most other competitors, many of whom consider the product
their A listing.

------
guylepage3
They definitely can be beaten but not for the reasons stated in this article.
Network effects cannot be undone without a fundamental shift in their business
models. Right now Facebook and Google make their money off advertising and
tracking their users. Break the business model and incentivize a Network and a
new Network can grow.

------
DmitryOlshansky
The biggest issue with a project under big tech giant is that they could
afford to trash it at the moment notice.

There is super low commitment on new projects (say <1% of work force),
compared to a startup that is betting all money and talent it could get on a
chance that there is an overlooked market for product X. 100% focus, staying
far from a comfort zone and taking the risk is what (in a very few cases
though) makes it work.

Basically tech gaint doesn’t have to “burn the ships” and therefore has lower
commitment, poor focus, has no sense of (get big or go home) urgency and
eventually drops the idea before it bears fruit.

It can offord to say “pass”, but doesn’t need to “bluf” and it doesn’t have
the same risk.

~~~
virgilp
On the contrary, my experience on the enterprise is the exact opposite: the
new projects where the commitment is a high % of workforce are the biggest
failures: the pressure to "deliver value" so overwhelming, that you can't
"fail your way to success". You've got one shot to succeed. Do you know any
startup who succeeded from the first shot? (and it gets worse - since you have
a lot of "resources", you also can't move fast, because there's a lot of
synchronization overhead: you can only employ a significant workforce once you
know _very well_ what needs to be done; on new projects, that's never the
case.)

------
Someone
Rome could be beaten, too, but before that happened, a lot of incumbents
failed, and Rome bought quite a few others before they became too powerful.

And yes, there are multiple winners. Some nibbled at Rome’s borders, carving
out a sizable chunk for themselves, some conquered Rome (often not with much
long lasted gains for themselves).

The big question is what made those who beat it winners. I would guess lucky
timing is a huge factor there. That’s what anybody trying to take (parts of)
those giants head on should be worried about.

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raspasov
What about Apple? Does anyone think that they can be beaten?

What makes Apple different from Google, Amazon & Facebook? Curious to hear
what people think.

~~~
chrisvalleybay
Paraphrasing from the book The Four by Scott Galloway: Apple is a company that
has positioned itself as a luxury brand. Apple is about sex and signalling.
Carrying an Apple phone signals more status than if you were to carry an
Android phone, since it is more expensive, just like with other luxury items.
But in addition to attaining this status, it has done something that many
other luxury brands have not: low production costs in addition to premium
pricing. Now, no other techbrand is a luxury brand, which puts Apple in its
own league. Either it's going to take a very long time to unseat Apple, or
they need to miss a big new market, that they didn't see coming. Now, most of
us believe AR/VR and AI to be the next market, if they aren't able to get to
market fast enough with products that we have come to expect from Apple, this
can be an issue.

I recommend reading the book by Scott Galloway, it is insightful.

~~~
ghostcluster
He has some insights, but also injects a lot of naive and grating political
signaling into analysis, which makes him sometimes hard to take seriously.

~~~
jbreckmckye
I have never read _The Four_, but stopped by to make a quick complaint: can we
please retire the verb "signalling" in political discourse?

As far as I can tell all "political signalling" means is "I cannot believe
what you profess to believe, therefore I assume that you profess it merely to
be trendy".

~~~
ghostcluster
When talking about Facebook earlier this month, he posed this question: "If a
firm wittingly or unwittingly becomes weaponized by Russian intelligence,
isn't the responsible thing to do to shut the firm down?"

That is the kind of eye-rollingly partisan political "signalling" I'm talking
about. If he thinks $100,000 of Russia linked ad-spend on Facebook flipped the
votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida, and thus we
should consider shutting Facebook down for this reason, I really can't take
his analysis that seriously.

~~~
jbreckmckye
That is not signalling. Signalling is making a political statement for a
social benefit. There is no particular indication of that here.

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tabeth
Whether or not they can be beaten is one thing. The other thing is whether or
not they'll fail to buy their competitor.

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junkscience2017
forget about Schumpterian disruption, strap in for some real dystopia. Think
about Apple with a standing army to protect it's assets. Think about Google
governoring cities. Think about Amazon buying the interstate system. Think
about Facebook having a seat on the UN Security Council.

At least one of the above will be true by 2040.

~~~
ttoinou
But then there will be competition in "army to protect company assets",
"company governed cities" "company owned interstate system" and "company UN
security council" ! Good news :D

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lkrubner
Standard Oil, AT&T and Microsoft can all be beaten -- just as soon as the
government steps in and takes action against them. Capital tends to
concentrate over time. It takes government action to break up monopolies.
There are very few examples of monopolies fading away on their own.

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likelynew
I think with many small countries outside US/Europe becoming developed, one
needs a shopping site with wide variety of international products and minimal
shipping rate.

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cvaidya1986
Anyone working on such startups? Secretly? :D

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partycoder
And that's why companies get acquired all the time.

In fact, many startups are created with the purpose of being sold to larger
companies.

