HN opinion clearly isn't with you, but I think there's a lot of truth in your comment. I can think of a couple of reasons. First because all successful busines

HN opinion clearly isn't with you, but I think there's a lot of truth in your comment. I can think of a couple of reasons. First because all successful businesses have something that is generating a lot cash for them which means they can spend money on resources small teams cannot, and they can keep trying. In the Google case they can just keep plugging away at social. This isn't a "critical mass" but it's significant. Second because the "critical mass" is existing users and brand awareness. It's always easier to sell to an existing customer, they have experience with you and like how you operate. Just being able to easily reach the user-base that Google can is a massive leg-up. You also get the benefit of being able to add network-effect or tie things together - see the whole gmail+G+.As importantly, people trust brands (how else can you explain Starbucks!) so you're more likely to be able cross barriers to get users on-board. Users associate themselves and their values with certain brands, it makes it much easier to extend into new product categories. Everyone likes a success story, but the way that large organisations operate and their models for innovation don't apply well to small teams (in my opinion).