1 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2020
    1. Furthermore, incumbents who generally do a good job, often manage to continue reigning. According to Brad Gerstner, CEO of Altimeter Capital, who recently did a podcast on Invest Like The Best, large tech companies have managed to take even more market share than 10 years ago. Some people may argue this is because the large tech companies have improved their products over time to stay ahead due to their increased collection of data and better algorithms that feed on that data over time. That may be true for some companies but not all. This also applies to other products that have not made significant strides in their technology — Craigslist, Salesforce CRM, Turbotax, Quickbooks to name a few. Even Google Search which arguably had a better product in the 1990s compared to its peers is about on par with alternative search engines today, but 90% of people worldwide still use Google. Old habits die hard, and distribution matters more than ever if you are just starting a business. It’s hard to topple incumbents who have strong distribution and already large audiences — even if you can build a much better product.

      Large incumbent tech companies have managed to retain their lead, partly due to network effects, but it also applies to companies that haven't made significant strides (e.g. Salesforce), probably because old habits die hard and success goes to the successful.