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The Curse of Culture

stratechery.com

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Re: The Curse of Culture

#61

Post by wangii »

blister wrote: post #44
wangii wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet the same.

Wow, I wouldn't. We are on the cusp of a major paradigm shift. Some of the smartest people in the world are tackling small edges of an impressive graph of capabilities. As more and more of these edges are solved, general purpose computing inches ever closer to our grasp. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on 10 years or less.

I very much hope strong AI to be reality within my life span, it would bring singularity and other wonderful things. but the sad fact is, we have close to 0 idea what intelligence means. In this field, we are still in pre-Newton era where we might have all tools available but have 0 clue how to put them together. that's why the world now are busy tackling small edge cases.

The next question is, can we put enough resources (money, smart people, computing power) to brute force? I bet no, because it's not an engineering problem but an ill defined one.

historically, major paradigm shift happened where major vendors ignored. there is no reason to believe google folks are smarter than the old generations. if they were, we as consumers are doomed.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#62

Post by PepeGomez »

visarga wrote: post #60
PepeGomez wrote: post #59

That's an interesting thought, but I'm afraid that the actual reason is far more trivial. Companies are typically founded by highly passionate and creative people, who care a lot about what they do and are both able and willing to steer their startup in the right direction. Once they grow, they start hiring new employees, many of those will inevitably be the kind of people who only want to do their job and go home. O…

A shorter version could be: startups are tempted to think radically different, to try new approaches, because they have nothing to lose. But a big, entrenched company has to protect the current cash flow first, then think about how to extend it. They have a lot to lose by cannibalizing the current business model in favor of a new, visionary model. They become victims of their own success.

While that also could be the case, it's not what I meant.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#63

Post by scholia »

mathattack wrote: post #33
scholia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's is doing fine under Cook Apple's stock price peaked at $132.54 just over a year ago and recently bounced from $90. Over the past year, Apple is down about 20% on NASDAQ and the S&P 500....

It was ~54 when he became CEO in August 2011, and now it's ~98. So ~100% return when you factor in dividends. SPX went from ~1280 to ~2080, so it's close, but not quite as much.

Yup, overall, it has been doing fine. It is not doing fine at the moment, which is the usual implication of the word "is".

However, I note that my accurate and true comment has been downvoted anyway ;-)

Re: The Curse of Culture

#64

Post by d0lph »

Jerry2 wrote: 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…

Have they ever been anything other than a "me too" company. They really haven't invented anything (see this video by Tek Syndicate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeC25BM9E0).

Re: The Curse of Culture

#65

Post by partiallypro »

scholia wrote: post #28
partiallypro wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> Similar happened to Balmer, he came in after the boom was over. Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, before DOS on the IBM PC transformed the company. He was a big part of its success all the way through..... > But tried to push into new markets (and failed.) When he became CEO the company was under close US judicial supervision (which lasted more than a decade), under attack from the EU, and paying out…

I think your and my post basically say the same thing, yours is just more detailed.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#66

Post by hanginghyena »

Interesting - Google's control over organic search might actually come under threat sooner....

http://www.marginhound.com/siri-will-virtual-assistants-disr...

Granted, Apple's recent market share numbers for mobile devices were down (and they are strong in US markets than globally; Android is doing better overseas). But they've got a legitimate shot at disruption as voice search grows.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#67

Post by tsycho »

snowwrestler wrote: post #29
L_Rahman wrote: 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…

I don't get the love for Stratechery. Thompson is a good writer but the few articles I can recall from him were bad misses. For example he wrote a long piece about how the Nest acquisition heralded a major new consumer products business model for Google. How has that worked out?

I don't think it's because of his prediction accuracy. What I love about his writing is that he brings in a fresh perspective and an alternative way to think about tech and its future, whereas most normal tech press just reports what's happening today and not even the why of that.

FWIW, while I found this particular piece insightful in general, I think he ignored the huge importance of Android and iOS. Even if the future is voice, the medium for the voice is likely to continue to be the phone or other wearables connected to the phone for a long time (5 years or more). And hence Apple and Google are likely to remain dominant since they will be at the front of the funnel. Even if the actual intelligence is coming from other companies, they will still have to be packaged as "app/AI plugins" into Android/iOS, so the OS owners should be able to continue to extract their pound of flesh a.k.a. App store revenue cut.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#68

Post by mathattack »

scholia wrote: post #63
mathattack wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was ~54 when he became CEO in August 2011, and now it's ~98. So ~100% return when you factor in dividends. SPX went from ~1280 to ~2080, so it's close, but not quite as much.

Yup, overall, it has been doing fine. It is not doing fine at the moment, which is the usual implication of the word "is". However, I note that my accurate and true comment has been downvoted anyway ;-)

Well I voted you up. :-)

It's hard to read too much into short term stock moves. To quote Warren Buffett quoting Ben Graham, "In the short term the stock market is a voting machine. In the long term it's a weighing machine."

Re: The Curse of Culture

#69

Post by scholia »

mathattack wrote: post #68
scholia wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, overall, it has been doing fine. It is not doing fine at the moment, which is the usual implication of the word "is". However, I note that my accurate and true comment has been downvoted anyway ;-)

Well I voted you up. :-) It's hard to read too much into short term stock moves. To quote Warren Buffett quoting Ben Graham, "In the short term the stock market is a voting machine. In the long term it's a weighing machine."

Thanks, I'm very happy with 0 ;-)

Agree on the stock market. Luckily I don't buy stocks and shares or (a) I would have made big losses or (b) made big wins and been jailed for insider trading....

Re: The Curse of Culture

#70

Post by scholia »

partiallypro wrote: post #65
scholia wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similar happened to Balmer, he came in after the boom was over. Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, before DOS on the IBM PC transformed the company. He was a big part of its success all the way through..... > But tried to push into new markets (and failed.) When he became CEO the company was under close US judicial supervision (which lasted more than a decade), under attack from the EU, and paying out…

I think your and my post basically say the same thing, yours is just more detailed.

Yes, I agree completely....
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