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How many of those amazon/Google employees are working on their respective roku alternatives? Your numbers don't really mean anything. For instance, Google could

How many of those amazon/Google employees are working on their respective roku alternatives? Your numbers don't really mean anything. For instance, Google could just as well only allocate 10 people to the chrome cast project, turning your statement around.

ForHackernews 5y ago
The point is that Roku are tiny underdogs competing against giants. If Google has only 10 people working on Chromecast, that's a choice they've made, not a resource constraint.
- d3nj4l 5y ago
  It doesn't matter if it's a choice they've made if they still beat Roku's dev ecosystem hands down. If Google can make a stellar dev experience out of Chromecast/Android TV with 10 engineers but Roku can't with 100 then it's entirely on Roku. The result matters more than whatever happens behind the scenes.
- DannyBee 5y ago
  No they aren't, though they like to try to make people feel this way. Again, I'm not sure how you can consider a company with a market cap of over 40 billion, and making 1.7 billion in revenue, some sort of "underdog competing against giants". In their space, it's more like giants bumping each other around.
  - netr0ute 5y ago
    > a company with a market cap of over 40 billion, and making 1.7 billion in revenue That's basically the definition of an underdog if you have a fraction of the number of resources (employees).
    - DannyBee 5y ago
      Well, i mean, technically the definition of an underdog is ": a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest" Which is not about the resources at all but about viewpoint on success. So i'm going to say "no, it's not basically the definition of an underdog". Even in slang, you aren't an underdog if you could have whatever you need, but choose not to. You might be one if you need something, don't have the resources to get it, and have to make do anyway. That is not the case for Roku - they could hire as many people as they like.

ForHackernews 5y ago

The point is that Roku are tiny underdogs competing against giants. If Google has only 10 people working on Chromecast, that's a choice they've made, not a resource constraint.

d3nj4l 5y ago
It doesn't matter if it's a choice they've made if they still beat Roku's dev ecosystem hands down. If Google can make a stellar dev experience out of Chromecast/Android TV with 10 engineers but Roku can't with 100 then it's entirely on Roku. The result matters more than whatever happens behind the scenes.
DannyBee 5y ago
No they aren't, though they like to try to make people feel this way. Again, I'm not sure how you can consider a company with a market cap of over 40 billion, and making 1.7 billion in revenue, some sort of "underdog competing against giants". In their space, it's more like giants bumping each other around.
- netr0ute 5y ago
  > a company with a market cap of over 40 billion, and making 1.7 billion in revenue That's basically the definition of an underdog if you have a fraction of the number of resources (employees).
  - DannyBee 5y ago
    Well, i mean, technically the definition of an underdog is ": a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest" Which is not about the resources at all but about viewpoint on success. So i'm going to say "no, it's not basically the definition of an underdog". Even in slang, you aren't an underdog if you could have whatever you need, but choose not to. You might be one if you need something, don't have the resources to get it, and have to make do anyway. That is not the case for Roku - they could hire as many people as they like.