With Essential, 'Already a Unicorn', Andy Rubin Wants To Disrupt the Apple-Samsung 'Duopoly' (cnet.com)

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Essential, Andy Rubin's new startup, has added $300 million to its war chest as it looks to break into the highly competitive field of consumer electronics. The financing round valued Essential at $900 million to $1 billion, according to an analysis by Equidate, which runs a market for private company stock. In an interview, Rubin, who created Android, shared how the company plans to move forward: "I think when there's this duopoly with these two guys owning 40 percent of the market, this complacency sets in," Rubin said. "And that's the perfect time to start a company with this. Some people are complacent and it needs to be disrupted."

Comments

Almost every business area has duopolies

[kfh227]

Take any business concept and there are duopolies. What happens is that two large companies take about 90% of the market share and the other 10% is split among a bunch of other smaller companies. Target/Walmart -> smaller versions like your corner store that sells movies, food and random electronics like USB chargers Lowes/Home Depot -> smaller versions exist all over the place and some are regional iOS/Android -> BB10, Windows and maybe a few others Even airlines are slowly consolidating. That's what happens when there are to many players. Consolidation happens till you have 1 or 2 major players and a few outliers. This guy is an idiot if he thinks that he can displace Samsung. He'll just get like 0.1% of the Android market if he is lucky.