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You could say the same or similar things about other companies with similar business models today who rose to prominence because of repeated innovation yet have

You could say the same or similar things about other companies with similar business models today who rose to prominence because of repeated innovation yet have since become seemingly stagnant: Google, Valve, ...

hunta2097 8y ago
I wouldn't say Google is stagnant... Apple users can thank them for forcing Apple to make their phone OS better (and vice-versa with regard to hardware). Google's problem isn't innovation, it's supporting and following-through on their innovations past the honeymoon period.
- adamrezich 8y ago
  They keep making new messaging apps that compete with each other instead of providing users with one great messaging app. Gmail's getting objectively crappier and they're killing off the much better Inbox interface. I'm not saying they make unilaterally bad decisions and I'm decently happy with my cheap Android phone but ten years ago Google was making new and exciting stuff and I haven't felt that way about them in years.
  - matwood 8y ago
    Google is also milking their moat. Look at the 10x price increase for using map APIs in the middle of this year.
- hinkley 8y ago
  Google seems stuck in the Xerox Parc trap. They babysit a bunch if twenty something kids while they daydream but they don’t have the tools or drive to mature those efforts into product roadmaps. Only google is in the uncanny valley. They go far enough to get people engaged a bit then cancel or reimagine the projects (or people wander off and their replacements have different theories?) and so instead of having no product or engagement they get just enough to draw negative attention, pissing people off who thought something good was going to happen and never did. Like Fox Networks with Joss Whedon...
brobdingnagians 8y ago
It seems like stagnation eventually catches up to every company. Google got big on rapid innovation and emphasis on engineering, but by long observation we can see it becomes more and more difficult to do that in a large company, and todays heros on innovation seem to be tomorrows megacorps waiting for the upstarts to overtake them when some large event changes the market. Maybe it's a mix of pride, complaceny, internal politics, and large-corp culture.
- hinkley 8y ago
  There’s a pattern in business of changing CEOs during different phases of the company lifecycle. They have CEOs for growth, ones for mergers, ones for IPOs and ones for selling out. When a company is growing if you let yourself get pulled in too many directions you’ll suffocate. But maybe the message becomes “we concentrate on a few important things” and eventually those things become boring. You need a new message before you become stodgy. There’s also JWZ’s dotcom era theory about people wanting to make a company successful vs people who want to be at a successful company.
  - brobdingnagians 8y ago
    I hadn't seen this before [ https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html ], but I really like it, thank you for quoting it! Posting here in case anyone else benefits.
    - hinkley 8y ago
      Just a warning to anyone who didn't already click: JWZ has a beef with Hacker News, and redirects to borderline NSFW image on Imgur. Cut and paste if you want to read it.

hunta2097 8y ago

I wouldn't say Google is stagnant... Apple users can thank them for forcing Apple to make their phone OS better (and vice-versa with regard to hardware). Google's problem isn't innovation, it's supporting and following-through on their innovations past the honeymoon period.

adamrezich 8y ago
They keep making new messaging apps that compete with each other instead of providing users with one great messaging app. Gmail's getting objectively crappier and they're killing off the much better Inbox interface. I'm not saying they make unilaterally bad decisions and I'm decently happy with my cheap Android phone but ten years ago Google was making new and exciting stuff and I haven't felt that way about them in years.
- matwood 8y ago
  Google is also milking their moat. Look at the 10x price increase for using map APIs in the middle of this year.
hinkley 8y ago
Google seems stuck in the Xerox Parc trap. They babysit a bunch if twenty something kids while they daydream but they don’t have the tools or drive to mature those efforts into product roadmaps. Only google is in the uncanny valley. They go far enough to get people engaged a bit then cancel or reimagine the projects (or people wander off and their replacements have different theories?) and so instead of having no product or engagement they get just enough to draw negative attention, pissing people off who thought something good was going to happen and never did. Like Fox Networks with Joss Whedon...

brobdingnagians 8y ago

It seems like stagnation eventually catches up to every company. Google got big on rapid innovation and emphasis on engineering, but by long observation we can see it becomes more and more difficult to do that in a large company, and todays heros on innovation seem to be tomorrows megacorps waiting for the upstarts to overtake them when some large event changes the market. Maybe it's a mix of pride, complaceny, internal politics, and large-corp culture.

hinkley 8y ago
There’s a pattern in business of changing CEOs during different phases of the company lifecycle. They have CEOs for growth, ones for mergers, ones for IPOs and ones for selling out. When a company is growing if you let yourself get pulled in too many directions you’ll suffocate. But maybe the message becomes “we concentrate on a few important things” and eventually those things become boring. You need a new message before you become stodgy. There’s also JWZ’s dotcom era theory about people wanting to make a company successful vs people who want to be at a successful company.
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  I hadn't seen this before [ https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html ], but I really like it, thank you for quoting it! Posting here in case anyone else benefits.
  - hinkley 8y ago
    Just a warning to anyone who didn't already click: JWZ has a beef with Hacker News, and redirects to borderline NSFW image on Imgur. Cut and paste if you want to read it.