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The Curse of Culture

stratechery.com

11–20 of 72 posts

Re: The Curse of Culture

#11
post #2

That's a great scene, with Jobs announcing that Internet Explorer would be the default browser on the Macintosh, and the crowd booing. Jobs has to stop speaking, twice.

I had somehow missed that gem in past viewings. I only focused on the "Bill Gates as BB" aspect.

For the curious, it starts at 28:36.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#12
IMO what the article talks about is the business model, not the culture, they are two separate things - not entirely separate, but mostly. Business model is Apple shipping devices and Google providing ad-supported services over the Internet. Culture is how in one company you can't push changes to the central repository without a code review which might take a couple of days, while in another you can work whichever way you please but if things break you're expected to fix them on Sunday at 3 AM.

Like the business model, culture is certainly influenced by the people at the top, though I think it's defined by a somewhat larger number of early employees, and it's harder to change once established, compared to the business model. Both affect performance in the market, but it's not as straightforward to analyze, even in hindsight, how exactly culture affects market performance relatively to the business model where in hindsight it's perfectly clear.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#13
post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

DeepMind is probably losing Google tens of millions a year. Now, it may pay off financially in the future, but it's hard to disentagle its effects given that Google already had a deep learning research group, Google Brain.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#14
post #6

>> I’m worried for Apple…If the landscape shifts to prioritize those big-data AI services, Apple will find itself in a similar position as BlackBerry did almost a decade ago: Maybe Apple is betting that AI won't be achieved in the next 15-20 years.

I'd bet the same.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#15
post #3

I'm a huge fan of Stratechery and Thompson. They've given me powerful ways of thinking about the world. Are there others out there? While Thompson does talk a lot about the intersection of technology with business strategy, he tends to focus on large, well-known technology companies that primarily have consumer facing offering. I'd pay to read something like Stratechery for biotechnology, or enterprise software but t…

Within pharma, Derek Lowe has been blogging for many years, with a mix of posts focusing on new developments as well as broader strategic questions. http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/ The comment section there is also typically informed.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#16
post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

It happens with all big companies. I don't think Cook is a bad CEO, he's just not a -great- CEO. He also had the unlucky chance to step into Steve Jobs' shoes, and also came in so late in the cycle that much of the market is already saturated.

Similar happened to Balmer, he came in after the boom was over. But tried to push into new markets (and failed.) I don't honestly think Balmer was a bad CEO, he was just very bad at pushing into new markets...and they already had the FTC on their backs, so their strangle hold on the existing market was diminished. Doing walled gardens like Apple and Google did would draw FTC ire, so they couldn't really do it.

In the end, Apple doesn't have the FTC on its back, basically controls the supply chain. They'll be fine, but they are in a saturated market and their explosive growth is over. Investors are much more interested in explosive growth in tech than slow steady cash flow.

I'm more concerned about the Google model than the Apple model. Apple's margins will probably fall, but I think the Google PPC cashcow is soon going to hit a wall as millennials become the majority and their adblockers and immunity to online advertising drives down conversions.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#17
post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

Definitely agree that Google is positioning themselves to take the next decade or two.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#18
post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

The systematizer who takes up leadership from the visionary is an ancient pattern.

The systematizer may lack inspirational genius but makes up for it with analytical and organizational genius. They can turn a phenomenon into a movement, or a movement into a world power.

You see this a lot with religions and philosophies — if you have n systematizers who take up the leadership from the prophet, you probably end up with n religions (including n = 0).

Re: The Curse of Culture

#19
post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

> Neither of them have succeeded.

What's the basis for this claim? Didn't Spotify just have to lower its family plan prices to compete?

Re: The Curse of Culture

#20
post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

One big difference - Microsoft's stock price languished under Ballmer, while Apple's is doing fine under Cook. (I haven't compared versus the market, but I suspect that it will still hold)

Cook's legacy will be if Apple pulls off the bet on autonomous cars. Auto manufacturing is very much a logistics challenge, which plays to his strengths. It's too early to write him off.

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