7 ms·

Whatever’s happening is a prime example of how disruptions happen in tech industry. Previous giants become fossils and new incumbents take the spot. IBM -> GE -

Whatever’s happening is a prime example of how disruptions happen in tech industry. Previous giants become fossils and new incumbents take the spot. IBM -> GE -> Google etc will all follow the same trajectory towards irrelevance.

droopyEyelids 4y ago
Too many of us kid ourselves about 'irrelevance' The companies you list build a legal moat around their business (establishing some amount of monopoly) and then begin sucking taxpayer money
BowBun 4y ago
In general I agree that these companies retract from the forefront and maybe aren't the innovative powerhouses that they once were, however both IBM and GE do fine as businesses and will probably be around for a long time. And I think it's important we have a bit of both in the world. The new startups produce innovation and cutting-edge tech, but we need these huge monoliths for capital-intensive projects. Google has been a driving force in laying sub-sea internet cables across Africa and South America for a good chunk of time now, enabling billions of people to come online. I don't think a small company could achieve that since it costs billions of dollars to do.
- avhception 4y ago
  While I think you're right and GE is a fine example, I'm not so sure with IBM. They seem to really have lost any direction or vision of what they actually want to do.
- gotorazor 4y ago
  GE hasn't really been doing fine since the great Recession. The GE of the mid-2000's was a behemoth. If I have to guess and adjusted for inflation, GE hasn't been this poor since the mid-80's.
bumby 4y ago
>Previous giants become fossils and new incumbents take the spot. Or, alternatively, the giants focus on maintenance and "innovate" through acquiring the new incumbents.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
I think this is an old myth that is no longer relevant. Sure, it might happen, but many companies now fully understand "the disruption game" and know how to adjust, primarily through acquisitions. The only way to break this is with more muscular antitrust, which (at least for now) seems to be happening. For example, Microsoft is famously still doing quite well despite desktop operating systems no longer being the most important game in town. Furthermore, dominant companies actually rarely get disrupted in the sense that someone comes along to take their business, it's that new markets open up that make the old business obsolete. But IBM is still the leader in mainframes, Microsoft still has dominance for desktop operating systems, Google is still dominant in search despite what feels like weekly articles about how search quality has gone down.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
  - xwowsersx 4y ago
    One of my favorite poems. In my language arts class in high school we could memorize poems and recite them to our teacher for up to 0.3 added to our GPA. This was one of them.
  - typon 4y ago
    This should be framed in the the office or every CEO. Although the point of the poem is the inevitability - maybe a good reminder nonetheless.
    - 4y ago

droopyEyelids 4y ago

Too many of us kid ourselves about 'irrelevance' The companies you list build a legal moat around their business (establishing some amount of monopoly) and then begin sucking taxpayer money

BowBun 4y ago

In general I agree that these companies retract from the forefront and maybe aren't the innovative powerhouses that they once were, however both IBM and GE do fine as businesses and will probably be around for a long time. And I think it's important we have a bit of both in the world. The new startups produce innovation and cutting-edge tech, but we need these huge monoliths for capital-intensive projects. Google has been a driving force in laying sub-sea internet cables across Africa and South America for a good chunk of time now, enabling billions of people to come online. I don't think a small company could achieve that since it costs billions of dollars to do.

avhception 4y ago
While I think you're right and GE is a fine example, I'm not so sure with IBM. They seem to really have lost any direction or vision of what they actually want to do.
gotorazor 4y ago
GE hasn't really been doing fine since the great Recession. The GE of the mid-2000's was a behemoth. If I have to guess and adjusted for inflation, GE hasn't been this poor since the mid-80's.

bumby 4y ago

>Previous giants become fossils and new incumbents take the spot. Or, alternatively, the giants focus on maintenance and "innovate" through acquiring the new incumbents.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

I think this is an old myth that is no longer relevant. Sure, it might happen, but many companies now fully understand "the disruption game" and know how to adjust, primarily through acquisitions. The only way to break this is with more muscular antitrust, which (at least for now) seems to be happening. For example, Microsoft is famously still doing quite well despite desktop operating systems no longer being the most important game in town. Furthermore, dominant companies actually rarely get disrupted in the sense that someone comes along to take their business, it's that new markets open up that make the old business obsolete. But IBM is still the leader in mainframes, Microsoft still has dominance for desktop operating systems, Google is still dominant in search despite what feels like weekly articles about how search quality has gone down.

monero-xmr 4y ago
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
- xwowsersx 4y ago
  One of my favorite poems. In my language arts class in high school we could memorize poems and recite them to our teacher for up to 0.3 added to our GPA. This was one of them.
- typon 4y ago
  This should be framed in the the office or every CEO. Although the point of the poem is the inevitability - maybe a good reminder nonetheless.
  - 4y ago