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Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#141

Post by TheMblabla »

wolco2 wrote: post #94
adventured wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also why is it that the majority of the large tech companies are essentially marketplaces? They're not. Non marketplaces: Apple, Microsoft, Huawei, SAP, TSMC, ARM, Intel, Samsung, SK, Cisco, Nvidia, AMD, IBM, Texas Instruments, Salesforce, Oracle, ASML, NXP, Netflix, Zoom, Dell, VMWare, Adobe, Applied Materials, Broadcom, Micron, Qualcomm, Intuit, Foxconn, Snapchat, Ant Financial, PayPal, Square, Stripe, Fiserv, Er…

Many of those are hardware/network companies. They don't necessarily fall into the type of startups being funded now or going forward. Companies like Cisco are important but they represent the past. Apple, Nintendo is a mix. Paypal, stripe, square are products for marketplaces. Netflix is a pass to a movie marketplace. Same for spotify. Groupon is a marketplace.

How is netflix a movie marketplace?

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#142

Post by dkersten »

dasil003 wrote: post #103
dkersten wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk of a startup being acquired has also prevented me from buying startup's products, both personally and for my employers, because chances are the "great news, we got acquired" is anything but great news for the actual customers. That announcement is usually the sign to start looking for alternatives.

Do you also not buy products from big companies? Because they also kill their own products or let them wither on the vine out of apathy.

For a startup product to be "safe", the startup has to not go under (and many do) and also either not get acquired, or get acquired and have the product not change too drastically.

There's an awful lot higher chance of a startup product not being a "safe" buy compared to an established company to kill a somewhat popular product and you can always look at their track record before making a decision (something a startup, by definition, typically doesn't have).

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#143

Post by akkartik »

goatherders wrote: post #121
rexreed wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deadpool of acquired companies runs very, very deep. While it might not necessarily be true of 50%+ of companies that are acquired go into the deadpool, it's common enough that an acquisition of a company's product that you use should cause you at least to make sure you have some sort of strategy to deal with a potential deadpool situation. Maybe it's not a guaranteed probability, but it is indeed very likely.

Sure. Agree completely. However it's worth noting that the customer-centric view, while valid, is rarely a good one. Companies are acquired b/c they are about to go out of business, because the IP is good, because the team is good, because the customer list is good, etc. Pissing off early customers is often the cost of growing the thing to its fullest potential.

This gets said a lot, but it's not internally consistent. If you are forced to piss off the people who love you, perhaps you shouldn't call it "growing". Call it "a pivot". You're taking a flyer for the _possibility_ of future growth.

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#144

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

> The low cost of starting a startup means the average good bet is a riskier one, but most existing VC firms still operate as if they were investing in hardware startups in 1985.

This has become more and more true over time, in particular as industrial-grade open source platforms, both software and hardware, have made super-scalable operations nearly free to implement. It is still difficult for me to grasp the magnitude of the fact that I can build a web-based service and make it immediately available to 5 billion other humans.

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#145

Post by warbaker »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #126
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know lots of founders will read this, please for the good of humanity stop being acquired. I know the money is so alluring, but how much is your soul worth and will that money make you happy? The future of humanity depends on tech people making tiny principled stands like this over and over. Don’t believe the lies spewing out from the acquiring company. Nothing will ever be the same again and your product will be e…

What about Instagram? Acquired at 10mn users, not really used by anyone except SF hipsters. Now a massive juggernaut and the same size (in MAU) as Facebook was when they acquired it.

And YouTube, and of course DoubleClick.

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#146

Post by lotsofpulp »

minikites wrote: post #134
ineedasername wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because most people want to believe that their success is due to their own specialness rather than some mix of luck and prior circumstances. I forget where it came from-- I thin Warren Buffet but I can't source it now-- but there's a sort of thought experiment or anecdote about this: Give everyone in the US a dollar. Then randomly choose half the country and have them give their dollar to a specific person in th…

Absolutely. There are studies where groups of people were examined while playing "Monopoly", but some players started with a massive money advantage. If (usually when) they won the game, they attributed it to their own skill at the game, not the massive advantage they had at the start. Being wealthy fucks up people's brains.

People are capable of saying one thing, and thinking another. I do it all the time, mostly for political purposes. There are many times where it is not in my interest to tell others what I really think, and I assume other are also not playing the game with all of their cards showing.

I.e. I assume people know the role luck plays in life, but are also not interested in the consequences of acknowledging that, and/or are interested in the consequences of pretending like they deserved it.

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#147

Post by thelean12 »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #85
rexreed wrote: post #83

> Tip for acquirers: when a startup turns you down, consider raising your offer, because there's a good chance the outrageous price they want will later seem a bargain. There's no evidence that this is the case. Indeed, after founders are acquired their fierce competitive spirit and drive often starts to dissolve once the founders have gotten their exit and the teams run into the inevitable corporate realities that e…

I know lots of founders will read this, please for the good of humanity stop being acquired. I know the money is so alluring, but how much is your soul worth and will that money make you happy? The future of humanity depends on tech people making tiny principled stands like this over and over. Don’t believe the lies spewing out from the acquiring company. Nothing will ever be the same again and your product will be e…

> I know the money is so alluring, but how much is your soul worth and will that money make you happy?

I really don't understand this attitude. If someone offers me enough money so that I never have to work again, you expect me not to take it?

I'll sell any company if I could get $4 million after tax and never have to work again. Every single time I'll take that offer. I guess that's how much my "soul" is worth. And yes, that will make me happy!

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#148

Post by lotsofpulp »

PaulHoule wrote: post #117
benlivengood wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said with the benefit of more hindsight I think the reason there are no more Googles is that FAANG has a stronghold on the largest technology markets. And the FAANGs are willing to pay very large amounts of cash to acquire promising startups. EDIT: Also why is it that the majority of the large tech companies are essentially marketplaces? Is there really that much friction in traditional markets (physical goods…

I think supermarkets are well run because they are highly competitive and you go every week so if you see it as a prisoner's dilemma where they "fulfill the brand promise" or "don't fulfill the brand promise" they get punished then they don't fulfill it so they have a reason to fulfill it. Thus Amazon is going to have a really tough time in that sector, but other parts of the retail sector tend to have you come into…

>People also discount the idea that "the customer is always right" to normalize bad behaviors such as not stocking space heaters when you need one right now for your chicken house -- somehow it is my fault for needing heat at the end of the cold season instead of the beginning.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Stores have limited space for inventory, and they have to make decisions about what the best use of that space is. It's very well possible it the probability of earning a profit on a heater at the end of a cold season is too small to merit stocking it. The store has no obligation to provide you with what you need at exactly the time you need it, so the concept of "fault" doesn't make sense to me in this scenario.

"Customer is always right" is a nonsense saying in my opinion. I always have informed my staff to show the customer the door if they're unnecessarily wasting their time.

Re: Why There Aren't More Googles (2008)

#149

Post by lixtra »

praptak wrote: post #11
chrisco255 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, but do they have that stronghold on the future of technology markets? I'm less convinced of that.

They filled the feasible niches for "internet-based monopoly". The next Google will have to find another way to get big.

I remember a time when altavista was a the only serious search engine around. I recently switched from google to ddg on mobile because I got sick of clicking away the privacy waiver in private mode.

If ddg would deliver better search results then google search would be in serious trouble (although it may take twice as long as yahoo to die). Of course it’s unlikely because if the talent google attracts, but that was true for IBM in the 80s as well.

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