I think it's a mistake to think of these cycles as inevitable, and that it's guaranteed that some small fry will disrupt the current giants. Yes, they may have happened in the past, but large companies are much more cognizant of the cycles of disruption now than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Microsoft was a behemoth in the late 80s and they're currently number 2 market cap in the world. Many folks on this board may be too young to remember Netscape's boast of "The Browser is the OS" in the mid 90s - well, Netscape is long gone and Microsoft is still giant. Only 2 years ago you saw pronouncements that OpenAI was going to be the death knell for Google, and it was it seemed to be the kick in the pants that Google needed to get their AI story working. Facebook just basically bought all its nascent competition (Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.)

I think disrupting large players will be much harder than it was it the past.

▲

bawolff 12 hours ago | parent [-]

These cycles have been going on a lot longer than the last 40 years. Everything eventually dies.

Rome used to rule the world; sure it took about a thousand years, but it ultimately didn't last.

▲

hn_throwaway_99 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I fully accept the heat death of the universe will eventually take down Microsoft, but I don't think that's what the comment I was responding to was really about.

	▲	bawolff 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My point was that this cycle is not a recent thing, but has been present all throughout history. Bell labs fell. The hudson bay company fell. Arthur Andersen fell. All these were much more entrenched than microsoft is today. I'm not suggesting you have to wait for the heat death of the universe.