re: #175 goddamnedfrank

I’m less surprised by the brick and mortar guys missing the importance of the internet than I am about how long Microsoft failed to see the potential. I grew up in Redmond and it was clear when I graduated high school in ‘91 that the internet was going to take off, but Bill Gates and the Microsoft board didn’t the potential for browsers, search engines and online shopping until others proved it. It’s crazy how much opportunity they pissed away.

The more I think about it, the more obvious it is that companies, especially big ones, are more likely to believe they can just keep doing what they’ve been doing and will remain successful. Large businesses are rarely disruptors - it’s the start ups that always end up changing the game. Microsoft was in that position when it negotiated with IBM and convinced IBM to let Microsoft keep the rights to the operating system - IBM thought the money was always going to be in the hardware, not the software.