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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 cu

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.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  you'll say it's innovation, but in reality, probably 0.1% of the employees got to work on it. This is irrelevant. So long as the new innovative product succeeds and is allowed to cannibalize the existing products, the company stays on top, riding the new wave. 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. It's not relevant that there were only 3 products spaced out by a lot of time. The significant point is that someone was allowed to do the disruptive innovation, and that the new products were allowed to cannibalize the existing products to some extent.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    And you believe no one at Google is being allowed to work on disruptive innovation, not even 0.1% of employees? The point is, Apple, Google, FB, Amazon, Microsoft, et al are all trying to find the next big disruptive thing. They all invest billions in R&D, but they also have to run their main cash cow businesses. In every company, there's going to be politics, risk aversion, and symbiotic copying with competitors. This is no different at Google, Amazon, or Apple. And for the rank and file employees who aren't working in R&D or on super-secret disruptions, things will seem fairly pedestrian. Yegge's claim that Google is 100% focused on competitors is a vast exaggeration.

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.

stcredzero 9y ago
you'll say it's innovation, but in reality, probably 0.1% of the employees got to work on it. This is irrelevant. So long as the new innovative product succeeds and is allowed to cannibalize the existing products, the company stays on top, riding the new wave. 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. It's not relevant that there were only 3 products spaced out by a lot of time. The significant point is that someone was allowed to do the disruptive innovation, and that the new products were allowed to cannibalize the existing products to some extent.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  And you believe no one at Google is being allowed to work on disruptive innovation, not even 0.1% of employees? The point is, Apple, Google, FB, Amazon, Microsoft, et al are all trying to find the next big disruptive thing. They all invest billions in R&D, but they also have to run their main cash cow businesses. In every company, there's going to be politics, risk aversion, and symbiotic copying with competitors. This is no different at Google, Amazon, or Apple. And for the rank and file employees who aren't working in R&D or on super-secret disruptions, things will seem fairly pedestrian. Yegge's claim that Google is 100% focused on competitors is a vast exaggeration.