points by antonvs 3 days ago | 0 comments
Most giants in highly technological areas don’t evolve, almost by definition. They get to a point where they’re mature companies just operating an existing business, and that’s diametrically opposed to developing new businesses.
Sure, they can spend money on R&D, but then they’re competing with every other new venture in the world - the only benefit they have is money, but collectively, everyone else has more money than they do.
This is why when private equity takes over a mature business, they almost always shut down any R&D the company is doing. Silly mature business, that’s not the reason for your existence!
[–] adrian_b 2 days ago
[–] antonvs 20 hours ago
> since around 1980 almost all big companies have focused much more on the financial results of the next quarter than on long-term research
Good point. What I described is not some law of nature, but a function of the current long-term fad of American ultracapitalism.
Happily, the signs are that this is all falling apart in an irreversible way. Whatever rises from the ashes might resemble a civilization again, if we're lucky.
[–] badpun 2 days ago
Mature businesses like e.g. tire or appliances manufacturers still have some R&D trying to make their products better. However, it may be more for appearances than for actual improvements, just because consumers like to buy a "new fancy model" over a tire or a dishwasher that have been in the market for 20 years (believing the new thing must be better).
From the first World War up to around 1980, a very large number of the most important technological innovations have been made in the research laboratories of a few giant companies, like ATT, IBM, General Electric, Westinghouse Electric.
For some reason, since around 1980 almost all big companies have focused much more on the financial results of the next quarter than on long-term research, so much less innovations were done in them (with a few exceptions, IBM has still produced a few very important innovations until around 2000, but those innovations were less important for IBM products, their impact was due to being licensed to others).