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A possibly more precise way of expressing this thought is: "Competition from big players doesn't necessarily equate to a death sentence to small players". Had

A possibly more precise way of expressing this thought is: "Competition from big players doesn't necessarily equate to a death sentence to small players". Had a similar thought yesterday: "Google Code and Launchpad are run by big players, yet Github is the real leader. Yet another argument against "XYZ big corp might smash us"." - http://twitter.com/clemesha/status/55400961652441088 http://twitter.com/clemesha/status/55400961652441088

chris_j 16y ago
> A possibly more precise way of expressing this thought is: "Competition from big players doesn't necessarily equate to a death sentence to small players". Absolutely. The key point here is that you avoid being squashed by the competition by being better than the competition. Just because the competition is a big company doesn't mean that you can't be better than them.
tieTYT 16y ago
But, unless I misunderstood the article, competition was not even a factor. The GDrive didn't exist then and it doesn't exist now.
jonnathanson 16y ago
I think the "XYZ Big Corp might smash us" fear is a corollary to the "winner-take-all, and first-to-market wins" fear, which itself is a corollary to the "ideas are everything" paradigm. Needless to say, history does not bear this thinking out in the tech space. More than in almost any other industry, in technology, the best implementation for the right segment at the right time usually wins. That "right time" might mean first-to-market, but often it doesn't. Sometimes the market needs a first-mover to familiarize people with the concept and establish the pain points with that concept, which the second- or third-mover then perfects. As for XYZ Big Corp, it's true that they'll always have resource advantages. But they've also got resource disadvantages in the form of corporate politics, bureaucracy, prioritizations and allocations of capital and talent, and so forth. Plus, one should not underestimate the advantage that a handful of uberpassionate-bordering-on-obsessive, working-all-hours hackers will have over an equivalent handful of corporate clock-punchers assigned to a project.
- dougws 16y ago
  I think fear of big players is sort of orthogonal to the thoroughly debunked "ideas are everything" notion. Even if you are the first mover in a given market, you might afraid that Google could release a competing product tomorrow and eat your lunch.
  - trafficlight 16y ago
    In terms of Google, those fears are pretty unfounded. Google releases new products all the time that fail to gain traction.
MasterScrat 16y ago
Yes. There's always grass to eat between the feet of the elephants.

chris_j 16y ago

> A possibly more precise way of expressing this thought is: "Competition from big players doesn't necessarily equate to a death sentence to small players". Absolutely. The key point here is that you avoid being squashed by the competition by being better than the competition. Just because the competition is a big company doesn't mean that you can't be better than them.

tieTYT 16y ago

But, unless I misunderstood the article, competition was not even a factor. The GDrive didn't exist then and it doesn't exist now.

jonnathanson 16y ago

I think the "XYZ Big Corp might smash us" fear is a corollary to the "winner-take-all, and first-to-market wins" fear, which itself is a corollary to the "ideas are everything" paradigm. Needless to say, history does not bear this thinking out in the tech space. More than in almost any other industry, in technology, the best implementation for the right segment at the right time usually wins. That "right time" might mean first-to-market, but often it doesn't. Sometimes the market needs a first-mover to familiarize people with the concept and establish the pain points with that concept, which the second- or third-mover then perfects. As for XYZ Big Corp, it's true that they'll always have resource advantages. But they've also got resource disadvantages in the form of corporate politics, bureaucracy, prioritizations and allocations of capital and talent, and so forth. Plus, one should not underestimate the advantage that a handful of uberpassionate-bordering-on-obsessive, working-all-hours hackers will have over an equivalent handful of corporate clock-punchers assigned to a project.

dougws 16y ago
I think fear of big players is sort of orthogonal to the thoroughly debunked "ideas are everything" notion. Even if you are the first mover in a given market, you might afraid that Google could release a competing product tomorrow and eat your lunch.
- trafficlight 16y ago
  In terms of Google, those fears are pretty unfounded. Google releases new products all the time that fail to gain traction.

MasterScrat 16y ago

Yes. There's always grass to eat between the feet of the elephants.