
American tech giants are making life tough for startups - laurex
https://www.economist.com/business/2018/06/02/american-tech-giants-are-making-life-tough-for-startups
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smattiso
With Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. seemingly investing in so many promising
technologies (ML, robotics, infrastructure, etc.) are we past the era when
innovation primarily came from startups?

It used to be that BigCorps didn't want to rock the boat for fear of
disrupting their businesses. These tech companies were built on the missed
opportunities of the entrenched players, and with our current financial
climate and its easy access to cash, they are not likely to make the same
mistake?

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cosmie
Were we ever in an era where innovation primarily came from startups?

For the most part, foundational technical innovation has always spewed
primarily from entities large enough to bankroll it without any immediate or
known ROI (universities, government labs, Xerox PARC, Sun Labs, IBM Research,
etc).

The innovation from startups tend to piggyback off of that technical
innovation. But the startups find unanticipated market applications,
innovative business models, or incremental improvements/refinements for
specific industries.

I think the biggest difference now is that modern BigCorps acknowledge those
strengths of startups rather than dismissing them. And between the current
financial climate and that acknowledgement, they're far more willing to buy up
a startup that looks promising than they used to be.

