Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all solving the same problems – The Verge

Never mind the future, we need more diverse visions of the present

While their approaches and economic models differ, the near future that Apple, Google, and Microsoft perceive is remarkably similar.

True innovation requires the undertaking of significant risk, and the bigger a company becomes the more conservative it inevitably has to be. … Without the dual pressures of both the consumer and the stock market, and without a historic reputation to uphold, small startups are now the best engine for generating truly new and groundbreaking innovations.

The money that has kept flowing into tech over the past decade or two seems to have brought with it an added risk aversion. The wild innovation goes into one silo, the day-to-day moneymaking goes into another. Aren’t tech companies supposed to make money by innovating?

This decoupling of the traditional model for a tech business — where risk-taking and money-making go hand in hand — is leaving us with an uncomfortable degree of uniformity among the products and services offered by the biggest and most powerful companies.

Source: Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all solving the same problems – The Verge