The Final Days of Google

theodp writes "Robert X. Cringely speculates about The Final Days of Google, making a compelling case that when the end comes, it is going to be an inside job. To find the founders of a Google-beating start-up, Cringely suggests looking no further than the thousands of entrepreneurial geniuses currently working for Google, who will inevitably be driven to leave the company to realize the dreams of their rejected ideas. 'The real money is in taking existing ideas and twisting the idea just far enough to make it work in a fantastic new way. Think Google vs. AltaVista; Apple vs. all previously existing laptops and mp3 players; YouTube vs. all previously existing video sites, etc. In addition to ideas, you need creativity, resources, connections, and luck -- none of which appear to be in short supply among Google worker bees. Much of the next influx of ideas to Sand Hill Road will come not just from former Google employees, but also from groups of former Google employees who are planning their future companies over free sushi and Diet Coke late at night in Google cafeterias.'"

Comments

Re:Free markets are not zero sum (sigh)

[apathy maybe]

Can I be the first to say "BULLSHIT!"?

Assume a closed system (take the Earth for example...), implement a "free market" economic system (arguments about whether or not it is truly free are irrelevant). This closed system is owned in this economic system (that is, there are no parts that are not owned by somebody or some organisation, who might be a government).

Now you say that a person can win simply by being a part? The more likely outcome is that through bad decisions, bad laws or whatever else, that the majority of people will lose, and a few will win. That's why you see a lot more poor people then rich, because in a closed system, when someone else wins, someone else will lose.

Of course, someone is going to think, "but what about the USA, aren't they winning?", well they might well be, but only because people in third world nations are losing...

(Of course what I said only applies in a "capitalist free market", where you have the possibility that unused property reverts to either common or no ownership as proposed by some anarchist free marketeers (no, not the "anarcho"-capitalists, they aren't anarchists) and I think Adam Smith, then it is possible that perhaps there aren't more losers then winners.)