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But the analogy to chess is another sign of short-term thinking. There is no end of the game if the company is to survive. Company execs are optimizing for the

But the analogy to chess is another sign of short-term thinking. There is no end of the game if the company is to survive. Company execs are optimizing for their own good. They won't be around forever, so they need an exit strategy (end game) that works out for them. If it takes the company down, well so be it. Was it a good idea for Groupon investors to take a bunch of money out of the pool in the last round of financing? You can bet they see an end to the game.

rbanffy 15y ago
The end of the game is beating your competition to the next disruption. Then, you start another match.
- troutwine 15y ago
  Forgive me, but that seems vague. The ending of chess is easily decidable, but how do you quantify 'disruption'?
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    The first example that comes to my mind is Apple. When audio compression and bandwidth allowed music to be transfered trough internet connections and P2P networks threatened to disrupt the music market, they had iTunes ready and quickly cut deals with record labels. Now they pretty much own the legal music market. The second one is the HP pocket calculator. Before it existed, nobody knew how bad slide-rules were. HP disrupted their own market for desktop calculators (but did it before someone disrupted it for them) Apple is also playing this post-PC game with their mobile platforms. They are fighting against Android for a better position on the next round. It looks like the next match won't take long to start.
    - troutwine 15y ago
      I don't at all disagree with you that disruptive innovations happen but, the problem as I see it is that you've simply _described_ some past innovations of such a sort without hitting the sticky problem of quantifying such a thing. How do you 'call' a 'match' and on what authority? The analogy to chess, I assert, rather breaks down quickly, as most analogies tend to, when examined closely. A two-agent zero-sum game is mathematically unlike an n-agent non-zero-sum game with non-total knowledge.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        If I could quantify it, I would probably be able to accurately predict it. The chess analogy was only to point out how optimizing for short outcomes can be against your best interests.
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      they had iTunes ready and quickly cut deals with record labels For the record, Apple didn't have iTunes "ready," and the deals with record labels didn't come quickly. Napster was released in 1999. iTunes started life as SoundJam, and wasn't released until 2001. The iTunes store didn't come until 2003. Apple dominated the legal music market because of the marketing and UX superiority of the iPod over its MP3-playing predecessors, not because they were first at anything.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        You are rigtht. I mixed the events up. The iPod was launched shortly after Napster became mainstream, but, still, Jobs played his cards skillfully and cornered the market before others realized what was happening.
- kelnos 15y ago
  No, the end of the game is whatever you decide gives you an outcome that makes you happy. If you don't want to have to start another match, you optimize for making your current match a big enough win so you can bow out afterwards. That may or may not be in the best interests of the other players involved.

rbanffy 15y ago

The end of the game is beating your competition to the next disruption. Then, you start another match.

troutwine 15y ago
Forgive me, but that seems vague. The ending of chess is easily decidable, but how do you quantify 'disruption'?
- rbanffy 15y ago
  The first example that comes to my mind is Apple. When audio compression and bandwidth allowed music to be transfered trough internet connections and P2P networks threatened to disrupt the music market, they had iTunes ready and quickly cut deals with record labels. Now they pretty much own the legal music market. The second one is the HP pocket calculator. Before it existed, nobody knew how bad slide-rules were. HP disrupted their own market for desktop calculators (but did it before someone disrupted it for them) Apple is also playing this post-PC game with their mobile platforms. They are fighting against Android for a better position on the next round. It looks like the next match won't take long to start.
  - troutwine 15y ago
    I don't at all disagree with you that disruptive innovations happen but, the problem as I see it is that you've simply _described_ some past innovations of such a sort without hitting the sticky problem of quantifying such a thing. How do you 'call' a 'match' and on what authority? The analogy to chess, I assert, rather breaks down quickly, as most analogies tend to, when examined closely. A two-agent zero-sum game is mathematically unlike an n-agent non-zero-sum game with non-total knowledge.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      If I could quantify it, I would probably be able to accurately predict it. The chess analogy was only to point out how optimizing for short outcomes can be against your best interests.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    they had iTunes ready and quickly cut deals with record labels For the record, Apple didn't have iTunes "ready," and the deals with record labels didn't come quickly. Napster was released in 1999. iTunes started life as SoundJam, and wasn't released until 2001. The iTunes store didn't come until 2003. Apple dominated the legal music market because of the marketing and UX superiority of the iPod over its MP3-playing predecessors, not because they were first at anything.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      You are rigtht. I mixed the events up. The iPod was launched shortly after Napster became mainstream, but, still, Jobs played his cards skillfully and cornered the market before others realized what was happening.
kelnos 15y ago
No, the end of the game is whatever you decide gives you an outcome that makes you happy. If you don't want to have to start another match, you optimize for making your current match a big enough win so you can bow out afterwards. That may or may not be in the best interests of the other players involved.