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Kodak could have adapted to digital cameras earlier. Blockbuster didn’t adapt fast enough to home delivery nor streaming. Sears, Montgomery Wards, and JC Penny’s (three companies that were once mail order catalog companies) didn’t adapt to online catalog sales fast enough nor well enough. Any other companies that failed to adapt? Would love to see a story on what happened behind closed doors that prevented the early adapting of new technology or business model.
Kodak is interesting because they actually developed a digital camera very early on. It was ultimately the hubris of their executives and fear of cannibalizing their insanely profitable film sales that led them to ignore the technology until it was too late.
Blockbuster suffered very much the same type of hubris. Early on Netflix actually approach Blockbuster about a partnership that would be mutually beneficial to both companies. Netlfix would run the online and mailing side of the business under the Blockbuster name while Blockbuster would promote the streaming service in their stores. Blockbuster executives essentially laughed the Netflix team out of the room.
In the case of Sears many analysts would say it had nothing to do with online sales. Sears was too diversified (choosing to grow product lines further versus cutting under performing lines to focus on more profitable ones), the Kmart acquisition was a disaster and made no sense. Beyond that, the brand was run as a virtual hedge fund driven to provide ROI to investors, not create a healthy brand. To that end, Sears sold off its most valuable brands and real estate that only served to further investor goals.
Xerox pioneered what became the modern PC with the graphical user interface, named Alto in the early 1970's. The Xerox PARC division (essentially the skunk works for Xerox) developed the system but never tried to commercialize it. In 1979 Steve Jobs bought Apple engineers access to PARC and the Alto system in exchange for shares in Apple. After two visits to the site Apple debuted the Lisa and Macintosh, which have obvious influences from the Alto computer.
Kodak is interesting because they actually developed a digital camera very early on. It was ultimately the hubris of their executives and fear of cannibalizing their insanely profitable film sales that led them to ignore the technology until it was too late.
Blockbuster suffered very much the same type of hubris. Early on Netflix actually approach Blockbuster about a partnership that would be mutually beneficial to both companies. Netlfix would run the online and mailing side of the business under the Blockbuster name while Blockbuster would promote the streaming service in their stores. Blockbuster executives essentially laughed the Netflix team out of the room.
In the case of Sears many analysts would say it had nothing to do with online sales. Sears was too diversified (choosing to grow product lines further versus cutting under performing lines to focus on more profitable ones), the Kmart acquisition was a disaster and made no sense. Beyond that, the brand was run as a virtual hedge fund driven to provide ROI to investors, not create a healthy brand. To that end, Sears sold off its most valuable brands and real estate that only served to further investor goals.
Xerox pioneered what became the modern PC with the graphical user interface, named Alto in the early 1970's. The Xerox PARC division (essentially the skunk works for Xerox) developed the system but never tried to commercialize it. In 1979 Steve Jobs bought Apple engineers access to PARC and the Alto system in exchange for shares in Apple. After two visits to the site Apple debuted the Lisa and Macintosh, which have obvious influences from the Alto computer.
WordPerfect. Anyone who was around in the early PC era knows that Whippy came along and cornered the market, pushing WordStar and a few other players into oblivion. When graphical interfaces came along, they stalled and sulked and refused to develop for both OS/2 and Windows, eventually picked the wrong horse, and by the time they figured out Windows was the future, Word had successfully transitioned to GUI and never looked back, even though it remained inferior to WP for years.
There was a memorable full-page ad from WP's CEO, basically whining and complaining and sulking that their customer base hadn't followed them to OS/2 and almost literally saying, FINE, then, we'll do a Windows product.
They survived only because the legal profession had adapted WP, and vice versa, to their field. (Almost wholly, in the beginning, because of a very slick line-numbering feature.) I just saw a WordPerfect Office pack somewhere like Target or Sam's. But classic case of absolutely owning a market, having no reason to ever lose ground, and just piddling away the advantage.
Just the opposite - capitalism gave us Apple, Netflix, Amazon. Capitalism causes innovation and adaptation, it doesn't kill it. There is a reason these companies started in the U.S.
Why companies don't adapt is more complex than that. It's usually leadership - human nature. Complacency. It's human nature to stay with what one is comfortable with. Until another competitor comes up with a better idea, and then it's usually too late - that's capitalism at work as well.
I don't want to get all Gordon Gecko here but '"greed", for lack of a better word, is good'. In terms of adapting, that's part of the problem with these established companies - these companies aren't motivated by greed anymore. Why should they? These leaders are fat and happy. You need someone more greedy to introduce the competition.
Just the opposite - capitalism gave us Apple, Netflix, Amazon. Capitalism causes innovation and adaptation, it doesn't kill it. There is a reason these companies started in the U.S.
Does it? Most of the important and groundbreaking works of innovation over the last 50 years were done via government funding in one form or another.
Apple wouldn't exist if computers had not been invented. And who were primarily inventors of the computer and the software that went with it? Various government and educational entities.
Both Netflix and Amazon only exist because the internet exists, who were the inventors and pioneers of the internet? The military, universities, various scientific organizations , etc none of which are capitalist entities. If capitalism spawns so much innovation why was government funding the core reason for a majority of the major inventions of the last 50 odd years? How come a capitalist entity didn't invent the internet?
Really how much innovation does capitalism actually provide? If you really break it down its roll in technological innovation is actually quite limited.
Does it? Most of the important and groundbreaking works of innovation over the last 50 years were done via government funding in one form or another.
Apple wouldn't exist if computers had not been invented. And who were primarily inventors of the computer and the software that went with it? Various government and educational entities.
Both Netflix and Amazon only exist because the internet exists, who were the inventors and pioneers of the internet? The military, universities, various scientific organizations , etc none of which are capitalist entities. If capitalism spawns so much innovation why was government funding the core reason for a majority of the major inventions of the last 50 odd years? How come a capitalist entity didn't invent the internet?
Really how much innovation does capitalism actually provide? If you really break it down its roll in technological innovation is actually quite limited.
No. Government didn't fund Amazon, Google, or Netflix. Your reasoning is somewhat akin to saying that UPS and Fedex prospered because the government built roads and airports for UPS and fedex trucks to operate on. Government creates the infrastructure for industry to thrive, as is their function.
Let the late Steve Jobs know that "oh you didn't do anything, the government did it for you". Maybe you can proclaim that in Apple headquarters. You would get laughed out of the building. And I submit to you once again - why hasn't a google, a netflix, or an amazon developed in any other country than the US? They all have functioning internet, government funding even more intensive than the US, and other infrastructure. You never addressed that. Nor does it address the original topic.
No. Government didn't fund Amazon, Google, or Netflix. Your reasoning is somewhat akin to saying that UPS and Fedex prospered because the government built roads and airports for UPS and fedex trucks to operate on. Government creates the infrastructure for industry to thrive, as is their function.
Let the late Steve Jobs know that "oh you didn't do anything, the government did it for you". Maybe you can proclaim that in Apple headquarters. You would get laughed out of the building. And I submit to you once again - why hasn't a google, a netflix, or an amazon developed in any other country than the US? They all have functioning internet, government funding even more intensive than the US, and other infrastructure. You never addressed that. Nor does it address the original topic.
You missed my point entirely. Amazon isn't that groundbreaking, what is groundbreaking was the concept and workings of the internet itself, which Amazon, Netflix and Google had nothing to do with.
As for Apple, name one groundbreaking invention to come out of that company?
Blackberry didn't adapt in time. They did not see the smart phone revolution ahead of them and by the time they realized that they needed to change it was too late.
Death by Totalitarian Oppression. Its socialism at its finest.
Have any greedy Democrat run large corporations in you 401K?
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