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lelanthran 6 days ago

> but in practice the firms that missed major technological advances like the internet or mobile did not fare well.

*Microsoft enters the conversation

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ants_everywhere 6 days ago | parent [-]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-still-paying-for-...

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/24/23930478/microsoft-ceo-s...

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lelanthran 6 days ago | parent [-]

Right, but the firm "Microsoft" is still faring well in spite of missing out on both the major technological leaps at the time.

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ants_everywhere 6 days ago | parent [-]

You have to be joking about them missing the internet?

They became nearly irrelevant because of mobile and had to claw their way back. That is not faring well.

They eventually made it out and survived because of cloud and gaming, but it took what many people consider a major transformation of the company.

Don't let your personal bias about AI cloud the way you see the world.

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lelanthran 6 days ago | parent [-]

> You have to be joking about them missing the internet?

No, I'm not. Bill gates famously missed it (and/or severely underestimated the need for internet on Windows PCs) in 1994/5.

Microsoft completely missed the internet, and had to play catchup throughout 1995-1998.

> They became nearly irrelevant because of mobile and had to claw their way back. That is not faring well.

That never happened. They were in no danger at any time. The historic stock price charts, if you care to look them up, would show that the mobile threat you think there was did not even put a blip on their stock price and/or their revenue.

I mean, their revenue never even blipped.

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ants_everywhere 6 days ago | parent [-]

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree with this characterization.

(1) Internet: Netscape came out in 1994, and the internet tidal wave memo was 1995 and internet explorer came out the same year. Windows was rewritten with a focus on the networking stack, with Windows NT coming out in 1993 before the web boom. The internet's value is based on network effects and while you are right that they weren't first to market, they embraced it quickly and if they hadn't it likely would have been disastrous.

(2) Stock price: if you bought MSFT in October the year the iphone came out in 2007, you would take 6 years to break even. If you bought at the top in 2000 you wouldn't break even until 2016. This is a company that was limping along. During the mobile phone boom you'd have been better off putting your money in treasuries than in MSFT.

Yes they survived and were able to do well later. But my original point still stands: if you were running MSFT and wanted to be successful you would have embraced the internet and mobile. Deliberately sitting out a major technological innovation is not a recipe for success because the risk of ruin is very high. And the risk of becoming IBM is even higher.

	▲	lotsofpulp 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>(2) Stock price: if you bought MSFT in October the year the iphone came out in 2007, you would take 6 years to break even. If you bought at the top in 2000 you wouldn't break even until 2016. This is a company that was limping along. During the mobile phone boom you'd have been better off putting your money in treasuries than in MSFT. Using equity returns to claim a business is limping along is bizarre. They were earning $10B profit per year in the early 2000s with 20%+ profit margins, something most businesses can only dream of doing, even today. https://www.helgilibrary.com/charts/microsoft-corporation-pr... If that business is limping along, then pretty much all other businesses are on life support.
	▲	6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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