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I don't know the name for it, but this seems like a "the market leader doesn't know what it's doing" fallacy. While I will concede that Google is not the marke
by mikkergp 6y ago
I don't know the name for it, but this seems like a "the market leader doesn't know what it's doing" fallacy. While I will concede that Google is not the market leader in many of these areas, It's Microsoft, not Airtable that's leading the way.
To me, Google has always been a relatively "boring" company, it's just that boring in the early to mid 2000s was a welcome change of pace. There innovations were almost entirely in back-end technology and simplicity, not innovative user experiences. Google docs was meant to be as boring as Microsoft word, because it turns out that most people know exactly what Microsoft Word does and like the single-purposeness of it. I love Notion, but I think the idea that Notion will every be as popular as word or docs is nuts. The vast majority of the market doesn't know what a Kanban board is much less want to embed one in their docs.
Making the argument that Google isn't as innovative as smaller startups is easy. Google is trying to appeal to the masses, not a niche. Saying they blew a ten-year lead is a stretch.
- MagnumOpus 6y agoGoogle was the oppositive of boring: - GMail with "unlimited" (never-seen-before 1GB) of storage when everyone had 10MB quotas was a "holy shit" moment, and fast web mail was a fresh breath of air - Google Maps, yet another "holy shit" experience when you used Mapquest before - Google Translate, so much better than everything that came before - Google search - OK that's late 1990s but I remember the "aha" moment of trying the Google beta after needing to become a power user of lycos/altavista/askjeeves You notice that all of these were more than a decade ago before their IPO. Larry and Sergei have gotten old and lazy, and so have their CxOs and VPs. No goals, no focus, no discipline because who cares if all the execs already have their private jets.
- jldugger 6y ago> You notice that all of these were more than a decade ago before their IPO. I don't, and neither does wikipedia: Gmail: April 1, 2004 IPO: Aug 19, 2004 Maps: February 8, 2005 Translate: April 28, 2006
- rorykoehler 6y agoYou touch on something I have thought about a lot.... why don’t we launch companies with the intent of winding them down once we have achieved what we set out to? It’s rhetorical as I know the answer is money But I yearn to live in a society where that would be the norm.