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Tons of large companies think long term. It might seem unique in the context of the tech world, but it's far from it. Thinking long term doesn't always transla

Tons of large companies think long term. It might seem unique in the context of the tech world, but it's far from it. Thinking long term doesn't always translate into great advancements. Particularly with large companies it can just turn them into a force that just eats up all competitors and stagnates (e.g. Walmart). Remember, investing in ensuring competitors can't enter the market is also long term, but it's not good for society. I think what's important is investing money in moonshot projects, which is only one of the many ways that companies can think long term.

Aunche 9y ago
It's unfair to say that Walmart is stagnating. They aren't taking moonshots, but their eCommerce division is no joke.
- zanny 9y ago
  It also doesn't hurt that Walmart effectively hit its moonshot. It murdered a million small businesses / local stores / mom & pops and in the process did make things a lot cheaper for many people. They optimized the supply chain of the traditional retail model to its limit (and then over it in legally questionable ways) and changed how people buy a lot of things forever. That being said, Walmart wasn't really innovating in doing it. It just did what everyone already knew worked but did it with less empathy and more scale. Its much the same way the current Amazon store site for regular things isn't innovative - they took something other people were doing and mixed in some scale and evil and came out on top in that regard. To Amazons benefit, it was/is innovative in web services, book sales, warehousing, etc. But as a retail store? Until recent years they just took the Walmart model gone digital and ran with it, and somewhere along the way took the Ebay model and pasted it in as well. It might also be to Amazons benefit that it was founded within months of the first ecommerce websites rather than some thousands of years after the first store chain or a hundred after the first integrated supply chain.
  - kudokatz 9y ago
    just out of curiosity, what drives you so strongly with themes of "lacking empathy" and "evil"?
    - specialist 9y ago
      He's probably aware of WalMart's history and impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart:_The_High_Cost_of_Low_Price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart:_The_High_Cost_of_Low...
- kudokatz 9y ago
  "The Arkansas-based company reported strong growth online, with e-commerce sales soaring 50 percent in the fiscal third quarter, a year after it acquired Jet.com. That's a slower pace than in the prior period when digital sales were up 60 percent." https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/wmt-q3-earnings-2017.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/wmt-q3-earnings-2017.html

Aunche 9y ago

It's unfair to say that Walmart is stagnating. They aren't taking moonshots, but their eCommerce division is no joke.

zanny 9y ago
It also doesn't hurt that Walmart effectively hit its moonshot. It murdered a million small businesses / local stores / mom & pops and in the process did make things a lot cheaper for many people. They optimized the supply chain of the traditional retail model to its limit (and then over it in legally questionable ways) and changed how people buy a lot of things forever. That being said, Walmart wasn't really innovating in doing it. It just did what everyone already knew worked but did it with less empathy and more scale. Its much the same way the current Amazon store site for regular things isn't innovative - they took something other people were doing and mixed in some scale and evil and came out on top in that regard. To Amazons benefit, it was/is innovative in web services, book sales, warehousing, etc. But as a retail store? Until recent years they just took the Walmart model gone digital and ran with it, and somewhere along the way took the Ebay model and pasted it in as well. It might also be to Amazons benefit that it was founded within months of the first ecommerce websites rather than some thousands of years after the first store chain or a hundred after the first integrated supply chain.
- kudokatz 9y ago
  just out of curiosity, what drives you so strongly with themes of "lacking empathy" and "evil"?
  - specialist 9y ago
    He's probably aware of WalMart's history and impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart:_The_High_Cost_of_Low_Price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart:_The_High_Cost_of_Low...
kudokatz 9y ago
"The Arkansas-based company reported strong growth online, with e-commerce sales soaring 50 percent in the fiscal third quarter, a year after it acquired Jet.com. That's a slower pace than in the prior period when digital sales were up 60 percent." https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/wmt-q3-earnings-2017.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/wmt-q3-earnings-2017.html