> They can't process the ramifications of their business practices on future business opportunities. Here's where that really hurts them (IMHO). Google, as a w

> They can't process the ramifications of their business practices on future business opportunities. Here's where that really hurts them (IMHO). Google, as a whole, has a very short attention span. A lot of things at Google began as bottom-up engineering-led projects, the poster child for which is probably GMail. This seems to work really well for things that are engineering problems. I think it works incredibly badly for a bunch of other things though. We, as engineers, tend to get bored. There are all sorts of quotes for this in software development like after you finish the first 90% you need to finish the second 90% (I forget who said this). I see project after project come out of Google that might be promising but it gets abandoned as the talent moves on to the next hot thing until finally it's killed. The cost of this, as you say, is paid by future projects. The classic counterexample to me is Apple Pay (vs Google Checkout/Google Wallet/Google Pay/Android Pay/Whatever it's called now). Every few weeks Apple announces some new bank or merchant or country is launched. Over years now they've slowly been building out this ecosystem. Google just doesn't have the commitment, focus and attention for this schlep [1], which is why they'll lose. Apple does. Apple has their failures too (Ping anyone?) but it's fair to say Apple really does put more wood behind fewer arrows [2]. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html [2] https://www.techradar.com/news/internet/page-more-wood-behind-fewer-arrows-driving-google-success-979307 https://www.techradar.com/news/internet/page-more-wood-behin...