4 ms·

I pulled out a section of this talk the other week that I thought was especially brilliant: his description of "Technological Windows of Opportunity" — when eno

I pulled out a section of this talk the other week that I thought was especially brilliant: his description of "Technological Windows of Opportunity" — when enough trends converge onto a radically new platform/experience and the economic costs of the technology align to make sense for a company to deploy and become the widely adopted platform in that window https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJX476dDFVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJX476dDFVc The Lisa was too early. So was the Newton. So was the Next Cube and NeXTStep... (which of course now is iOS)

ghaff 8y ago
A huge percentage of ideas aren’t bad ideas but they’re not at the right time because people aren’t ready for them, complementary technologies aren’t mature enough, they solve a problem that isn’t a current market priority, etc.
- doomlaser 8y ago
  You can find plenty of articles in magazines in the early 1990s talking about the handheld internet connected device (that nobody could succeed with until the iPhone). The Mac itself was too early for wide adoption. The first Mac had a tiny memory footprint and no hard drive. CPU and GPU technology needed time to speed up and shrink in size and cost. Apple survived on Apple II sales for years after the Mac was introduced and iterated, and nearly suffocated from mismanagement until Jobs returned and the iMac launched — Windows 95 was right on time. Here's an Apple video about conversational voice-based digital assistants... from 1987 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0 The Valley is littered with husks of companies that had the right vision before the technology was ready (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic). NeXT was almost one of them.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    The Mac wasn't just "too early" it was overpriced. The popular narrative that Apple struggled from 1984 until 1997 isn't true. Apple was doing fine between around 1987-1994. It was vying for the #1 computer seller in the early 90s with HP. Two things happen in 1995. Apple made a lot of low end computers and not enough high end computers and Windows 95 was good enough.
    - copperx 8y ago
      There is some truth to that in my experience. Most of my friends coveted a Mac, but only a few could afford one. We settled for Windows 95.
    - doomlaser 8y ago
      It was overpriced because it was too early. The components to deliver the GUI experience weren't sufficiently commoditized yet. In 1995, the entire product line was confused, and the then-CEO had opened up the platform to commodity cloners, robbing Apple of its vertical market and hardware margin.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        The Mac had ridiculous margins compared to PCs by 1987 - especially for color Macs. Jean Louis Gassée (founder of Be) was the main executive of Apple who went for short term margins instead of going for market share. I got my first Mac in 1992 after owning an Apple //e for years. For the price of my Mac LCII - 68030-16Mhz with slow built in graphics, and a 512x384 12" monitor that wasn't compatible with most Mac games, I could have gotten a much faster 386, a sound card, and better graphics, much cheaper. Then Apple even cheap out more and had a 16 bit bus instead of the 32 bit bus. The Mac used 68030 processors that were used by other workstations, SCSI chips that were widely available, etc.
        doomlaser 8y ago
        Yes, they managed the company terribly in the years after Jobs left (with the exception of the alignment with IBM and Motorola for the Power architecture and chip transition). Apple had something like 5 different CEOs in 8 years before Amelio decided to buy NeXT and bring Jobs back into the fold.
        scarface74 8y ago
        Sculley wasn't a bad CEO. He was Steve Ballmer style CEO. He knew how to profitably manage a company but he had no vision. Under his leadership, he brought Apple from the brink of extinction in 86, led the transistion to the PPC, the PowerBooks defined what a modern laptop should be and between 1989 - 1992, Apple was at it height. Scully would have been a better CEO than all of the CEOs that came between 1993 and the return of Jobs. There are very few tech companies that successfully pivot into new areas and can transistion when technology changes that are not led by their founders. Just like "only Nixon could go to China", only Jobs could make the famous deal with Microsoft in 1997.

ghaff 8y ago

A huge percentage of ideas aren’t bad ideas but they’re not at the right time because people aren’t ready for them, complementary technologies aren’t mature enough, they solve a problem that isn’t a current market priority, etc.

doomlaser 8y ago
You can find plenty of articles in magazines in the early 1990s talking about the handheld internet connected device (that nobody could succeed with until the iPhone). The Mac itself was too early for wide adoption. The first Mac had a tiny memory footprint and no hard drive. CPU and GPU technology needed time to speed up and shrink in size and cost. Apple survived on Apple II sales for years after the Mac was introduced and iterated, and nearly suffocated from mismanagement until Jobs returned and the iMac launched — Windows 95 was right on time. Here's an Apple video about conversational voice-based digital assistants... from 1987 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0 The Valley is littered with husks of companies that had the right vision before the technology was ready (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic). NeXT was almost one of them.
- scarface74 8y ago
  The Mac wasn't just "too early" it was overpriced. The popular narrative that Apple struggled from 1984 until 1997 isn't true. Apple was doing fine between around 1987-1994. It was vying for the #1 computer seller in the early 90s with HP. Two things happen in 1995. Apple made a lot of low end computers and not enough high end computers and Windows 95 was good enough.
  - copperx 8y ago
    There is some truth to that in my experience. Most of my friends coveted a Mac, but only a few could afford one. We settled for Windows 95.
  - doomlaser 8y ago
    It was overpriced because it was too early. The components to deliver the GUI experience weren't sufficiently commoditized yet. In 1995, the entire product line was confused, and the then-CEO had opened up the platform to commodity cloners, robbing Apple of its vertical market and hardware margin.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      The Mac had ridiculous margins compared to PCs by 1987 - especially for color Macs. Jean Louis Gassée (founder of Be) was the main executive of Apple who went for short term margins instead of going for market share. I got my first Mac in 1992 after owning an Apple //e for years. For the price of my Mac LCII - 68030-16Mhz with slow built in graphics, and a 512x384 12" monitor that wasn't compatible with most Mac games, I could have gotten a much faster 386, a sound card, and better graphics, much cheaper. Then Apple even cheap out more and had a 16 bit bus instead of the 32 bit bus. The Mac used 68030 processors that were used by other workstations, SCSI chips that were widely available, etc.
      - doomlaser 8y ago
        Yes, they managed the company terribly in the years after Jobs left (with the exception of the alignment with IBM and Motorola for the Power architecture and chip transition). Apple had something like 5 different CEOs in 8 years before Amelio decided to buy NeXT and bring Jobs back into the fold.
        scarface74 8y ago
        Sculley wasn't a bad CEO. He was Steve Ballmer style CEO. He knew how to profitably manage a company but he had no vision. Under his leadership, he brought Apple from the brink of extinction in 86, led the transistion to the PPC, the PowerBooks defined what a modern laptop should be and between 1989 - 1992, Apple was at it height. Scully would have been a better CEO than all of the CEOs that came between 1993 and the return of Jobs. There are very few tech companies that successfully pivot into new areas and can transistion when technology changes that are not led by their founders. Just like "only Nixon could go to China", only Jobs could make the famous deal with Microsoft in 1997.