4 ms·

> But I also just am so very very sad to see so much talent disappear off the open market, distressed that the lead seems to only grow & grow over everyone else

> But I also just am so very very sad to see so much talent disappear off the open market, distressed that the lead seems to only grow & grow over everyone else. All that talent was up for grab: What were the other players waiting for?

vlovich123 6y ago
Exactly. Not just that, acquiring the talent is one thing. Providing the culture & resources for them to succeed over a long period of time? That's special & why most M&A activity results in a neutral or even negative result.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
By open marketet I think he/she means producing products/services that can be used by multiple other companies. As opposed to being confined to the Apple silo. Note: I'm not judging that analysis, just trying to refine the interpretation.
rektide 6y ago
> All that talent was up for grab: What were the other players waiting for? That's exactly the problem with monopolies. As one two or three companies get to be ever more outsized giants (Apple: 2.2T$, Amazon & Microsoft: 1.6T$), owning more of the talent pool, there's less other players with any chance to build up success, to acquire talent. People can keep making small, successfully-acquired companies, but this idea that it's everyone elses fault for not challenging the monopoly is not a statement I'm very sympathetic to.
- zepto 6y ago
  Apple’s market cap was less than 10% of what it is now when they bought PA Semi. Monopolies have nothing to do with this.
nabla9 6y ago
Monopoly power from two sided markets. Apple is in the position where it outbid competition. They take 20% cut from app sales and sell 200 million units.
- zepto 6y ago
  When the bought PA semi they were nowhere near the size they are now. All that happened is that Apple made better investments than their potential competitors.
Jetrel 6y ago
In a lot of cases, it was probably something more insidious, as indeed is the case for a lot of acqui-hires in the software space: most of them probably didn't have anyone using their stuff (relatively speaking). A lot of these companies that produce these things are building things that simply aren't useful unless "deployed" or "applied" at scale. The best way to put it is it's the difference between designing an AK-47, and designing a battleship. Most techies look at things, and assume they're like a AK-47; if the big players don't use it, DIY guys can still home-craft their own AKs and it'll have a profound impact on the world. But with many of these sorts of tech firms that are getting acquired, if they aren't actually having their stuff used by one of the big guys, it may as well not exist. If you design a battleship, and there's not a nation-state interested in building it, despite having what may be an excellent design, you've got ... nothing. Nobody can DIY that like they can a design for a rifle. A very good analogy here would be graphics cards. If I come up with a software innovation, like a new rendering technology, it's viable for anyone to slot into a game engine somewhere and play with. If I come up with a new hardware design, and it doesn't get applied by one of the actual hardware vendors out there, it may as well not exist.

vlovich123 6y ago

Exactly. Not just that, acquiring the talent is one thing. Providing the culture & resources for them to succeed over a long period of time? That's special & why most M&A activity results in a neutral or even negative result.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

By open marketet I think he/she means producing products/services that can be used by multiple other companies. As opposed to being confined to the Apple silo. Note: I'm not judging that analysis, just trying to refine the interpretation.

rektide 6y ago

> All that talent was up for grab: What were the other players waiting for? That's exactly the problem with monopolies. As one two or three companies get to be ever more outsized giants (Apple: 2.2T$, Amazon & Microsoft: 1.6T$), owning more of the talent pool, there's less other players with any chance to build up success, to acquire talent. People can keep making small, successfully-acquired companies, but this idea that it's everyone elses fault for not challenging the monopoly is not a statement I'm very sympathetic to.

zepto 6y ago
Apple’s market cap was less than 10% of what it is now when they bought PA Semi. Monopolies have nothing to do with this.

nabla9 6y ago

Monopoly power from two sided markets. Apple is in the position where it outbid competition. They take 20% cut from app sales and sell 200 million units.

zepto 6y ago
When the bought PA semi they were nowhere near the size they are now. All that happened is that Apple made better investments than their potential competitors.

Jetrel 6y ago

In a lot of cases, it was probably something more insidious, as indeed is the case for a lot of acqui-hires in the software space: most of them probably didn't have anyone using their stuff (relatively speaking). A lot of these companies that produce these things are building things that simply aren't useful unless "deployed" or "applied" at scale. The best way to put it is it's the difference between designing an AK-47, and designing a battleship. Most techies look at things, and assume they're like a AK-47; if the big players don't use it, DIY guys can still home-craft their own AKs and it'll have a profound impact on the world. But with many of these sorts of tech firms that are getting acquired, if they aren't actually having their stuff used by one of the big guys, it may as well not exist. If you design a battleship, and there's not a nation-state interested in building it, despite having what may be an excellent design, you've got ... nothing. Nobody can DIY that like they can a design for a rifle. A very good analogy here would be graphics cards. If I come up with a software innovation, like a new rendering technology, it's viable for anyone to slot into a game engine somewhere and play with. If I come up with a new hardware design, and it doesn't get applied by one of the actual hardware vendors out there, it may as well not exist.