It largely comes down to ego. Large companies often have a mentality that they're better and smarter because they're bigger. So they overestimate their own prowess and underestimate the upstarts.
In fact, true innovation often comes from the mind of one person or a small group but the ego of the large company doesn't allow them to accept that they've been scooped. Engineers are particularly prone to this problem. (I'm an engineer and have worked with engineers all my life).
I experienced this with a company I started in the early 80's. We had a great product but it followed a different paradigm than the existing ones. The competition saw our success and tried to compete by making their own product flashier, but continued to build on their existing designs which were fundamentally flawed. As we took their market share, they kept trying the same strategy, piling on higher end hardware and glitzy UIs, but still missing what made customers buy ours instead. They kept doing this until it was too late and our product was the industry standard and theirs was marginalized.
I see this time and again. Corporate ego getting in the way of good business decisions. It's a cycle that every company is doomed to repeat. Ego is human nature.
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It's ego that causes companies to fail
In fact, true innovation often comes from the mind of one person or a small group but the ego of the large company doesn't allow them to accept that they've been scooped. Engineers are particularly prone to this problem. (I'm an engineer and have worked with engineers all my life).
I experienced this with a company I started in the early 80's. We had a great product but it followed a different paradigm than the existing ones. The competition saw our success and tried to compete by making their own product flashier, but continued to build on their existing designs which were fundamentally flawed. As we took their market share, they kept trying the same strategy, piling on higher end hardware and glitzy UIs, but still missing what made customers buy ours instead. They kept doing this until it was too late and our product was the industry standard and theirs was marginalized.
I see this time and again. Corporate ego getting in the way of good business decisions. It's a cycle that every company is doomed to repeat. Ego is human nature.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by antigone42.
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