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> becoming "100% competitor-focused" and said the company "can no longer innovate." I understand that from a nowadays developer perspective, innovation is held

> becoming "100% competitor-focused" and said the company "can no longer innovate." I understand that from a nowadays developer perspective, innovation is held in high regard and rightfully so. However, NO ONE can innovate constantly and forever. A competition race such as the cloud pricing Google vs. Amazon he mentioned is actually a good thing for customers from a economic standpoint. At some point, all companies have to slow down innovation and focus more on competitions and it's not necessarily a bad thing. That usually means refining existing products, rethinking strategies, retiring things that do not work and expanding to a new market space with a "me too" product (a "me too" product is a common strategy to tread new territory with relatively low risk).

QasimK 9y ago
Surely large companies should be capable of having some people that are innovating while others are focusing on competition?
- stuffedBelly 9y ago
  Agree. I just don't really buy his "100% competitor focused" statement. Isn't Google X and moonshot projects serve as Google's innovation hub?
  - soperj 9y ago
    those aren`t part of google any more.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      They've also been massively cut back on, and anything that doesn't look like a sure path to profitability has been killed by the CFO, Ruth Porat.
  - skywhopper 9y ago
    Those things exist, but are they successful?
    - aaomidi 9y ago
      I mean they literally just announced a new company that graduated their incubator.
      - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        The parent asked if they were successful. Google "graduating" them (I presume this includes... a party?) doesn't indicate success: They have no product and no revenue at this time. It is a drain on Google's ad revenue profits, and someone hopes it might someday be more. Chronicle... exists. That's about all it has going for it right now.
gvd 9y ago
It's probably easier to innovate when you don't have the intellectual baggage Google has. You are more likely to think outside the box
stcredzero 9y ago
However, NO ONE can innovate constantly and forever. A competition race such as the cloud pricing Google vs. Amazon he mentioned is actually a good thing for customers from a economic standpoint. There was recently an article on HN that claimed that the cost of starting a new business group at Amazon was amazingly low, and that the process was amazingly fast. Basically, you get the people together/get people hired, and you just start doing stuff. If that's true, then why couldn't Amazon manage to innovate forever? What's to prevent Jeff Bezos from getting together a pool of expertise comparable to that of YCombinator, and replicating the kind of ecosystem YCombinator managed to develop? I question your assertion that, At some point, all companies have to slow down innovation and focus more on competitions
- JonnyNova 9y ago
  Companies change as they get bigger because of increasing risk. The company has more value and making big gambles risky ventures with a large company starts to become irresponsible.
  - kbutler 9y ago
    ...like the irresponsibly risky gamble of not changing. (Innovator's Dilemma) But yes, in many ways it is less risky for a big company to try to acquire successful innovative small companies rather than trying to do the innovation in-house. But they criticized for that, too.
    - natbobc 9y ago
      I think there's 2 primary motivations for acquisition; 1. purchase for innovation. 2. market control. I think the latter is what people squawk about the most. Employees of the acquired will always find it uncomfortable. Small companies often have limited process where larger companies generally need it to function. That being said I don't think larger companies cull/assess the impact/efficiency of their processes on a regular basis.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  If your company has multiple business lines that grow at 15% YOY, and you keep hiring say, 10,000 employees every year, eventually, the majority of your revenue will be from existing, not new, product lines and most of your employees will be working on products that either fail, copy, or are not innovative. If and when, a product group becomes a major hit and rockets to a billion users, you'll say it's innovation, but in reality, probably 0.1% of the employees got to work on it. Everyone else will feel like there's no innovation going on in the group they work in. You cannot have a company continually hitting iPhones every year. Even Steve Jobs said he only worked on three disruptive innovative products: The Apple 2, the original Mac, and the iPhone, and those were spaced out by very long periods. You can't grow a company to billions in revenue and tens of thousands of employees and have all of them working on new stuff, and no significant overlap with existing product categories of competitors.
GVIrish 9y ago
I think a key point Yegge made there is that Google is not paying attention to the customer. Instead, Google is maybe devoting too much focus to responding to the competition. Starting with uncovering and serving customer needs and desires is a great impetus for innovation. Following what the competition is doing and one-upping them is also a viable strategy but it also means you'll be one or more steps behind. Still, I think some things like Google Home and Google Assistant are pretty innovative and perfect for utilizing Google's strengths. I think if they keep pushing along that nexus of mobile, ai, and natural language technology there's a lot of new territory they can capture. On the other hand, I feel like Google is gonna have a tougher time fighting off Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud market. Google doesn't seem to be as good at serving enterprise customers [as MSFT and AMZN] and that's where a lot of the money is. Google also doesn't have much advantage, if any, in developer tools to entice people to use their platform over the others either.
- bostik 9y ago
  > Following what the competition is doing and one-upping them is also a viable strategy but it also means you'll be one or more steps behind. The problem with that strategy is that you're essentially allowing your competitors to dictate your roadmap - with products they have already shipped. That can't be long-term sustainable.

QasimK 9y ago

Surely large companies should be capable of having some people that are innovating while others are focusing on competition?

stuffedBelly 9y ago
Agree. I just don't really buy his "100% competitor focused" statement. Isn't Google X and moonshot projects serve as Google's innovation hub?
- soperj 9y ago
  those aren`t part of google any more.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    They've also been massively cut back on, and anything that doesn't look like a sure path to profitability has been killed by the CFO, Ruth Porat.
- skywhopper 9y ago
  Those things exist, but are they successful?
  - aaomidi 9y ago
    I mean they literally just announced a new company that graduated their incubator.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      The parent asked if they were successful. Google "graduating" them (I presume this includes... a party?) doesn't indicate success: They have no product and no revenue at this time. It is a drain on Google's ad revenue profits, and someone hopes it might someday be more. Chronicle... exists. That's about all it has going for it right now.

gvd 9y ago

It's probably easier to innovate when you don't have the intellectual baggage Google has. You are more likely to think outside the box

stcredzero 9y ago

However, NO ONE can innovate constantly and forever. A competition race such as the cloud pricing Google vs. Amazon he mentioned is actually a good thing for customers from a economic standpoint. There was recently an article on HN that claimed that the cost of starting a new business group at Amazon was amazingly low, and that the process was amazingly fast. Basically, you get the people together/get people hired, and you just start doing stuff. If that's true, then why couldn't Amazon manage to innovate forever? What's to prevent Jeff Bezos from getting together a pool of expertise comparable to that of YCombinator, and replicating the kind of ecosystem YCombinator managed to develop? I question your assertion that, At some point, all companies have to slow down innovation and focus more on competitions

JonnyNova 9y ago
Companies change as they get bigger because of increasing risk. The company has more value and making big gambles risky ventures with a large company starts to become irresponsible.
- kbutler 9y ago
  ...like the irresponsibly risky gamble of not changing. (Innovator's Dilemma) But yes, in many ways it is less risky for a big company to try to acquire successful innovative small companies rather than trying to do the innovation in-house. But they criticized for that, too.
  - natbobc 9y ago
    I think there's 2 primary motivations for acquisition; 1. purchase for innovation. 2. market control. I think the latter is what people squawk about the most. Employees of the acquired will always find it uncomfortable. Small companies often have limited process where larger companies generally need it to function. That being said I don't think larger companies cull/assess the impact/efficiency of their processes on a regular basis.
cromwellian 9y ago
If your company has multiple business lines that grow at 15% YOY, and you keep hiring say, 10,000 employees every year, eventually, the majority of your revenue will be from existing, not new, product lines and most of your employees will be working on products that either fail, copy, or are not innovative. If and when, a product group becomes a major hit and rockets to a billion users, you'll say it's innovation, but in reality, probably 0.1% of the employees got to work on it. Everyone else will feel like there's no innovation going on in the group they work in. You cannot have a company continually hitting iPhones every year. Even Steve Jobs said he only worked on three disruptive innovative products: The Apple 2, the original Mac, and the iPhone, and those were spaced out by very long periods. You can't grow a company to billions in revenue and tens of thousands of employees and have all of them working on new stuff, and no significant overlap with existing product categories of competitors.

GVIrish 9y ago

I think a key point Yegge made there is that Google is not paying attention to the customer. Instead, Google is maybe devoting too much focus to responding to the competition. Starting with uncovering and serving customer needs and desires is a great impetus for innovation. Following what the competition is doing and one-upping them is also a viable strategy but it also means you'll be one or more steps behind. Still, I think some things like Google Home and Google Assistant are pretty innovative and perfect for utilizing Google's strengths. I think if they keep pushing along that nexus of mobile, ai, and natural language technology there's a lot of new territory they can capture. On the other hand, I feel like Google is gonna have a tougher time fighting off Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud market. Google doesn't seem to be as good at serving enterprise customers [as MSFT and AMZN] and that's where a lot of the money is. Google also doesn't have much advantage, if any, in developer tools to entice people to use their platform over the others either.

bostik 9y ago
> Following what the competition is doing and one-upping them is also a viable strategy but it also means you'll be one or more steps behind. The problem with that strategy is that you're essentially allowing your competitors to dictate your roadmap - with products they have already shipped. That can't be long-term sustainable.