4 ms·
First, second, or third is great--anything else and you have problems
- jkush 20y agoI know this is way off topic but every time I see that pic on his blog, I become unnerved. I'm not sure he's a real person. He's kind of plastic looking. It's almost like he's Steve Ballmer's avatar.
- create_account 20y agoHe thinks you're a sharp looking guy, too :D
- jkush 20y ago
- jkush 20y agoI suspect you might actually be Don Dodge. Is that true? Judging by your comments, you don't seem to be a very big fan of YC. :D
- create_account 20y agoIn general, the YC idea of small seed amounts is a good one. I'm also an entrepreneur myself. It's just when the bubble mentality starts creeping back, I feel the need to call bullshit. Just think of me as the proverbial grain of salt. EDIT: No, I'm not Dodge. That creepy guy can write his own comments.
- brett 20y agoBefore I read your comment I was actually thinking, "I wonder if someone has a greasemonkey script to get rid of Dodge's head"
- mattculbreth 20y agoNote to self: remove picture from blog before posting my own articles to news.yc.
- far33d 20y agoFunny... GE's policy was that they wouldn't be in any business they couldn't be first or second in. But suddenly, we've added third. Because MSFT is 3rd in search. hah.
- create_account 20y agoThese "absolutes" are a little tiring. You can always find an outlier or exception. Don't these guys understand probability theory?
- nostrademons 20y agoIt depends on the market - some markets seem to support 3 major players, while others only support two. Think GM, Ford, and Chrysler for the U.S. car market; Toyota; Honda, and Nissan for the Japanese car market; ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips for the domestic oil market; Apple, Commodore, and Tandy for the 1970s PC market; and Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung for the cell phone market. Oftentimes that equilibrium is unstable, too. Chrysler got bought up by Daimler-Benz, Nissan seems to have disappeared, all the 1970s PC manufacturers ended up as bit-players when IBM and clones took over the market, and ConocoPhillips is clearly doing its best to become the #2 U.S. oil company instead of the #3. So they're both right, it just depends on what time horizon you're looking at.
- ced 20y agoI had a flash from biology while reading this: they say that two specie can never occupy the exact same biological niche. One of them will always have a higher growth rate, which will drive the other to extinction. If that applies to business, being consistently second would be leading to bankruptcy...