21–30 of 86 posts
What happens to the unicorn's equity stake in a unicorn-backed company if the unicorn itself goes out of business? Does that equity get re-distributed to the unicorn's investors?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blockchain sure, but why do you think self-driving is a bubble?
Exactly my question. I have yet to see real use cases for blockchains beyond speculation and some light crime. And I think true self-driving cars (SAE Level 5 in specific) are 10-30 years out. But I think there's enough value to be had in lower, more achieveable levels that I expect some of the companies investing in those technologies now will be long-term financial winners.
A lot of blockchain tech startups raise money and then turn around and invest in other startups. I think we're gonna look back at this in 5 years and collectively say, what were we thinking?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blockchain sure, but why do you think self-driving is a bubble?
Exactly my question. I have yet to see real use cases for blockchains beyond speculation and some light crime. And I think true self-driving cars (SAE Level 5 in specific) are 10-30 years out. But I think there's enough value to be had in lower, more achieveable levels that I expect some of the companies investing in those technologies now will be long-term financial winners.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty simple, Consolidation. Companies that have information advantage will continue to push into new markets and absorb or kill incumbents. These are complimentary phenomenon actually.
So what is your claim here? That most companies haven't learned these lessons but those that have will assimilate or destroy the ones that don't? What would that look like in the statistics? Are there particular companies that you think are doing this successfully? The post you originally replied to mentioned Google and Facebook neither of which look like companies that have learned this lesson well enough to beat th…
Precisely
What would that look like in the statistics?
Something like this: https://www.investopedia.com/news/5-companies-amazon-killing...
Are there particular companies that you think are doing this successfully?
FAANG are the examples here. Look at the top 10 most used apps[1].
5/10 are Google owned
3/10 are Facebook owned
1 is owned by Apple
Amazon in clearly leading here as it has 49% of the ecommerce market share.
Microsoft has the vast majority of the IT ecosystem.
Facebook the company is doing well in this area. Google is also doing well here.
Creating (rather than buying at great expense) successful new products
I'm not sure why "buying at great expense" is relevant here. At the end of the day it comes down to longevity. The longest lasting companies are ones which have bought themselves into relevancy. That's the whole point. They have the market capacity to buy out or crush their competition.
Facebook used Instagram to crush Snapchat in pretty much every dimension because Snap wouldn't sell to them.
All your other metrics are kind of random and I'm not sure if there is anything that says those things lead to longevity. The few companies who were good at this in the past (Standard Oil, Bell, Railroads) eventually got broken up by the government.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/most-used-smartphone-apps-20...
From an operations perspective, this is for Business Intelligence and creating a funnel for acquisitions. Venture is one of the best ways to spot trends in your own market(s), and lead run any future competition with an acquisition, new product or product changes. This is one of the major things that distinguishes major 21st century companies today from major companies in the past. If you know all of the up and comin…
From an operations perspective, this is for Business Intelligence and creating a funnel for acquisitions. Venture is one of the best ways to spot trends in your own market(s), and lead run any future competition with an acquisition, new product or product changes. This is one of the major things that distinguishes major 21st century companies today from major companies in the past. If you know all of the up and comin…
Corporate M&A can do many of those things already. They have cash. They don't need 'a fund' to do that ... and yet most corporate M&A is a disaster.
I wouldn't believe it until I saw it at a large company and then it all clicked and it actually makes sense.
M&A & VC teams are considerably more removed from the strategic impetus of companies than you might imagine - these are human organizations with a lot of individual self interest. M&A teams like making deals. They are opportunistic I find more than strategic ... which can be ok, but they find something cool and want to make a big thing out of it - but the product people in the company may not want them on board.
So company A acquires company B. Now what? Aside from new branding and T-shirts ... it takes a lot of effort to integrate these things. A new product that fits well into a product line, that does not need to be integrated technically, this might work.
Sometimes companies get bought because the CEO saw the website or met the CEO and 'liked him' and the product kind of makes sense. The head of M&A wants to please the CEO and goes gangbusters to make it work.
Legal, IP and financial due diligence are all the least important kinds of due diligence! Product and cultural due diligence are what matters, and they are weirdly not on the checklist - or not as intensely as they should be.
I think instead of VC, these companies should be focused in rigorous, objective oriented, well-managed M&A activity.
I don't even know who a good example would be - it used to be Cisco, I'm not sure anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft knew all about Google Yahoo knew everything about Google Google knew everything about Facebook Intel knew everything about ARM Yet disruption ensued. “Can’t be disrupted” is foolish.
This theory basically assumes that firms cannot get smarter over time. It assumes corporations will never get better at evaluating the market and their place in it, or have better information than previous generations. That's a dangerous assumption, and doesn't seem to jibe with what we see in practice.
I see exactly this in practice.
Big companies are usually totally lacking in self awareness on so many things.
'Good companies' have a strong sense of where they are, and can manage direct threats - I think FB is a good example.
But more distant threats, I don't think so.
And most companies are not 'good companies'.
Nortel, Nokia, BlackBerry, Alcatel. Just to name a few.
A lot of blockchain tech startups raise money and then turn around and invest in other startups. I think we're gonna look back at this in 5 years and collectively say, what were we thinking?
Many of us are already thinking that :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what is your claim here? That most companies haven't learned these lessons but those that have will assimilate or destroy the ones that don't? What would that look like in the statistics? Are there particular companies that you think are doing this successfully? The post you originally replied to mentioned Google and Facebook neither of which look like companies that have learned this lesson well enough to beat th…
That most companies haven't learned these lessons but those that have will assimilate or destroy the ones that don't? Precisely What would that look like in the statistics? Something like this: https://www.investopedia.com/news/5-companies-amazon-killing... Are there particular companies that you think are doing this successfully? FAANG are the examples here. Look at the top 10 most used apps[1]. 5/10 are Google owne…
I think it's a little early to say whether Facebook or Google will have the kind of longevity of a GE, ExxonMobil or DuPont. Longevity on its own doesn't actually seem particularly interesting, what makes those three stand out is staying large and relevant for so long, not merely surviving.
> All your other metrics are kind of random and I'm not sure if there is anything that says those things lead to longevity. The few companies who were good at this in the past (Standard Oil, Bell, Railroads) eventually got broken up by the government.
My metrics were directed partly at that point. Microsoft was a more recent target of government. It looks much more likely today that Facebook, Google or Amazon would be targets of government action (with plenty of public support) than it did just a few years ago.