51–60 of 204 posts
An automatic loom manufacture got turned into one of the biggest automobile companies: Toyota
Nokia was initially a pulp mill.
Microsoft initially sold a BASIC interpreter, then a Unix, then MS-DOS.
This is a pretty decent list if you are interested in the concept and looking for examples. https://github.com/fikrikarim/companies-with-successful-pivo...
These lists always kind of remind me of popular bands that changed music over time. The most drastic "pivot" I've ever come across in a known band is Ministry, who went from a benign new-wave Depeche Mode clone in 1983 [1] to a pseudo-Cabaret Voltaire in 1986 [2], then to full-on metal by 1991 [3].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VFqVRepm6U
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say that Google monetized organizing the world's information by selling ads. That is pretty exactly what they did with search and search ads.
Except that they largely deprioritized things besides search because they couldn't monetize to the same degree. Google Reader, Scholar, Books (and yes I know there were legal issues), Deja News/Groups, etc. They continue to sort of support things like Blogger but they're clearly not a priority. To Google, the "world's information" is mostly restricted to information they can serve search ads against.
They added the monetizable part later.
There has been other information besides the web that they have organized: YouTube.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that they largely deprioritized things besides search because they couldn't monetize to the same degree. Google Reader, Scholar, Books (and yes I know there were legal issues), Deja News/Groups, etc. They continue to sort of support things like Blogger but they're clearly not a priority. To Google, the "world's information" is mostly restricted to information they can serve search ads against.
Agree but still a grand vision. Organizing the world's monetizable information and making it accessible. They added the monetizable part later. There has been other information besides the web that they have organized: YouTube.
Air BNB Started as a tool for renting rooms in cities during conferences, where hosts were expected to provide no more than an air mattress. Pivoted to full on house renting. Chesky talks about it all here in the blitzscaling series, an interview series conducted by Reid Hoffman: https://youtu.be/W608u6sBFpo
that doesn't really seem like a pivot, moreso a big expansion of their original niche
Slack is a great story. Basically a tool they built in-house, the company were going bust and they realised that the "tool" had some value and out popped Slack https://review.firstround.com/From-0-to-1B-Slacks-Founder-Sh...
Plaid was originally a budgeting app. After realizing how terrible banking APIs are, they pivoted to building a developer-friendly banking API. Now their valuation is 10B+.
Warren Buffet turned a textile manufacturing company into a holding. An automatic loom manufacture got turned into one of the biggest automobile companies: Toyota Nokia was initially a pulp mill. Microsoft initially sold a BASIC interpreter, then a Unix, then MS-DOS.
Panasonic started out making lightbulb sockets.
Mitsubishi started as a shipping company.
Yes, someone did a full-scale IPO for a San Francisco strip club during the original dot-com boom. Ticker symbol GRLZ. SEC central index key 0000931799, if you want to track the history of the company.