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Railroads, telecommunications, aerospace, integrated circuits, electric power... I think a better question is when has it not worked?

astrange 6y ago
Aerospace doesn’t have a monopoly except that strictly regulated industries prefer having one passenger plane manufacturer because they’re easier to watch. Nor do ICs (there’s at least four big fabs and three big CPU producers). The ones that work own moats like land or government licenses. But Uber doesn’t have that.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  That's not the reason aerospace is essentially a duopoly. The real reason is that every single aircraft development program in recent history has been late and over budget, and now aircraft development is something that costs an eyewatering billions of dollars, if not in the tens of billions of dollars at this point. Bombardier sold, Embraer tried to, and Japan, Russia, and China have all mostly sputtered on despite having well financed government backing. To put this in perspective, 787 development cost $32B. 737MAX is expected to cost past $18B. You can't bootstrap a startup if it takes tens of billions of dollars to get a plane out of the factory.
  - papito 6y ago
    I don't know - how many tens of billions did VCs put into Uber or WeWork, when these companies are not making a dime... It seems like that's not a factor. Perhaps they find it boring, or perhaps the technical risk is just too high. It's all or nothing. You can BS your way through a classic tech startup as Adam Neumann did. It's harder with something that is a single flagship product that has to drive (Nikola) or fly hundreds of people in the air.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      They may not be making a profit, but they are booking some revenues, in the sense that people are paying money, right now, for rideshares. This is not really a dynamic in aircraft programs, where delivery of aircraft takes years.

astrange 6y ago

Aerospace doesn’t have a monopoly except that strictly regulated industries prefer having one passenger plane manufacturer because they’re easier to watch. Nor do ICs (there’s at least four big fabs and three big CPU producers). The ones that work own moats like land or government licenses. But Uber doesn’t have that.

bobthepanda 6y ago
That's not the reason aerospace is essentially a duopoly. The real reason is that every single aircraft development program in recent history has been late and over budget, and now aircraft development is something that costs an eyewatering billions of dollars, if not in the tens of billions of dollars at this point. Bombardier sold, Embraer tried to, and Japan, Russia, and China have all mostly sputtered on despite having well financed government backing. To put this in perspective, 787 development cost $32B. 737MAX is expected to cost past $18B. You can't bootstrap a startup if it takes tens of billions of dollars to get a plane out of the factory.
- papito 6y ago
  I don't know - how many tens of billions did VCs put into Uber or WeWork, when these companies are not making a dime... It seems like that's not a factor. Perhaps they find it boring, or perhaps the technical risk is just too high. It's all or nothing. You can BS your way through a classic tech startup as Adam Neumann did. It's harder with something that is a single flagship product that has to drive (Nikola) or fly hundreds of people in the air.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    They may not be making a profit, but they are booking some revenues, in the sense that people are paying money, right now, for rideshares. This is not really a dynamic in aircraft programs, where delivery of aircraft takes years.