7 ms·

The downfall of so many large companies back then, including general Capital, basically turning into a finance arm glorified general electric

ProllyInfamous 1y ago
>back then And still. General Electric was (just a few decades ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 50 anymore. Saudi Aramco was (just a few years ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 10 anymore. If you want to read about similarities in Xerox's own hubris/downfall, Dealers of Lightning is one of my favorite non-fiction reads of the past few years (about their SFbay PARC Labs of the 70s/80s... and its failures to adapt).
- FinnLobsien 1y ago
  Just because you brought up this topic: Which of the top tech companies today do you think are most like Xerox/GE in the sense that they're maximizing financial gain out of what they've built without building for the future?
  - gregw2 1y ago
    I'll bite. The "Computer Associates" of today is... Salesforce. Have they really improved Tableau, Heroku, Mulesoft, Sendgrid, Slack, now Informatica?
    - wil421 1y ago
      ServiceNow wants to become the new Oracle/IBM, same went Salesforce I think.
  - Uvix 1y ago
    Intel, Broadcom, and Nvidia.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Also not OP, and I'm not an analyst, but my impression is that each of these have stopped looking to the future: • Meta (all of it) • Google (not necessarily the rest of Alphabet) • Apple — UI updates are not innovation, and there's a lot of bugs • X (the social media website, no comment on the new parent AI company) • The car-shaped bits of Tesla — the humanoid robotics bits are at least "future", even if Tesla is not demonstrating anything new in this space
    - LPisGood 1y ago
      Objectively the Vision Pro was innovative.
      - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
        I do not own any AAPL (neutral feelings; don't know enough about their direction). Unfortunately, my mid-sized US city still doesn't have an Apple Store... so I haven't demoed the VisionPro, yet; but I want to be able to see if its endorseable for my Parkinsons friend (whose eyes still work well); I suspect if I demoed it I'd also purchase one too. Absolutely seems innovative.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        I don't see it. To me, it seems to have the same problems as the Google Glass, in that it's far too expensive and doesn't have a clear idea what its own USP is. That said, while I've played with a few different VR headsets, I've not had a chance to play with the VP, so perhaps there's something in the quality that would become visible if not for the prohibitive price.
        LPisGood 1y ago
        It has a lot of drawbacks; I agree completely. I don’t own one, I don’t like it as a product, and I wouldn’t buy one, but the tech was undeniably innovative.
        WillAdams 1y ago
        The 128K Mac was not too far off from being a promising toy (it wasn't until the Apple LaserWriter became available that the true promise/utility was made real) --- you have to build the expensive first version for early adopters so that you can later figure out how to make the affordable version folks will actually buy and use.
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    There are several good examples in adjacent-comments, each company suffering from the same common deathknell of becoming largest in its field of similarly over-cumbersome organizations. Failure to steer the ship as it becomes too top-heavy (e.g. kill R&D immediately; outsource all the things). To echo [1] the Xerox example, the C-suite became entirely made-up of former salesmen who'd become addicted to the pavlovian `click`ing sound their massive copiers made in bill-per-page leases... which blinded them from realizing the digitizing world wasn't going to favor their no-risk-taking approach. `click` - `click` - `click` – late 60's ASMR erotica for Xerox VPs. [1] amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer-ebook/dp/B0029PBVCA
  - wil421 1y ago
    Tech today sells dopamine to end users. Those companies were huge industrial type giants at the time, especially GE, and sold to enterprises large and small. Companies can do financial tricks but end users can’t.

ProllyInfamous 1y ago

>back then And still. General Electric was (just a few decades ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 50 anymore. Saudi Aramco was (just a few years ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 10 anymore. If you want to read about similarities in Xerox's own hubris/downfall, Dealers of Lightning is one of my favorite non-fiction reads of the past few years (about their SFbay PARC Labs of the 70s/80s... and its failures to adapt).

FinnLobsien 1y ago
Just because you brought up this topic: Which of the top tech companies today do you think are most like Xerox/GE in the sense that they're maximizing financial gain out of what they've built without building for the future?
- gregw2 1y ago
  I'll bite. The "Computer Associates" of today is... Salesforce. Have they really improved Tableau, Heroku, Mulesoft, Sendgrid, Slack, now Informatica?
  - wil421 1y ago
    ServiceNow wants to become the new Oracle/IBM, same went Salesforce I think.
- Uvix 1y ago
  Intel, Broadcom, and Nvidia.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- ben_w 1y ago
  Also not OP, and I'm not an analyst, but my impression is that each of these have stopped looking to the future: • Meta (all of it) • Google (not necessarily the rest of Alphabet) • Apple — UI updates are not innovation, and there's a lot of bugs • X (the social media website, no comment on the new parent AI company) • The car-shaped bits of Tesla — the humanoid robotics bits are at least "future", even if Tesla is not demonstrating anything new in this space
  - LPisGood 1y ago
    Objectively the Vision Pro was innovative.
    - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
      I do not own any AAPL (neutral feelings; don't know enough about their direction). Unfortunately, my mid-sized US city still doesn't have an Apple Store... so I haven't demoed the VisionPro, yet; but I want to be able to see if its endorseable for my Parkinsons friend (whose eyes still work well); I suspect if I demoed it I'd also purchase one too. Absolutely seems innovative.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      I don't see it. To me, it seems to have the same problems as the Google Glass, in that it's far too expensive and doesn't have a clear idea what its own USP is. That said, while I've played with a few different VR headsets, I've not had a chance to play with the VP, so perhaps there's something in the quality that would become visible if not for the prohibitive price.
      - LPisGood 1y ago
        It has a lot of drawbacks; I agree completely. I don’t own one, I don’t like it as a product, and I wouldn’t buy one, but the tech was undeniably innovative.
      - WillAdams 1y ago
        The 128K Mac was not too far off from being a promising toy (it wasn't until the Apple LaserWriter became available that the true promise/utility was made real) --- you have to build the expensive first version for early adopters so that you can later figure out how to make the affordable version folks will actually buy and use.
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago
  There are several good examples in adjacent-comments, each company suffering from the same common deathknell of becoming largest in its field of similarly over-cumbersome organizations. Failure to steer the ship as it becomes too top-heavy (e.g. kill R&D immediately; outsource all the things). To echo [1] the Xerox example, the C-suite became entirely made-up of former salesmen who'd become addicted to the pavlovian `click`ing sound their massive copiers made in bill-per-page leases... which blinded them from realizing the digitizing world wasn't going to favor their no-risk-taking approach. `click` - `click` - `click` – late 60's ASMR erotica for Xerox VPs. [1] amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer-ebook/dp/B0029PBVCA
- wil421 1y ago
  Tech today sells dopamine to end users. Those companies were huge industrial type giants at the time, especially GE, and sold to enterprises large and small. Companies can do financial tricks but end users can’t.