Entrepreneurs say in an economic boom it's actually hard to build a company because everybody's too excited and there is too much money funding too many marginal companies.
Interpretation
In a booming economy, competition increases, making it challenging for entrepreneurs to succeed.
Marc Andreessen highlights the paradox of economic booms, where the influx of capital and enthusiastic investors leads to an oversaturated market filled with subpar companies. This environment can make it difficult for truly innovative ideas to stand out, as many ventures receive funding despite having little merit, causing a dilution of resources and attention for potential success.
In practice
This quote can be used during a startup pitch event to explain the challenges of gaining traction in a crowded market.
People are so bad at driving cars that computers don't have to be that good to be much better. Any time you stand in line at the D.M.V. and look around, you're like, Oh, my God, I wish all these people were replaced by computer drivers.
It's really rare for people to have a successful start-up in this industry without a breakthrough product. I'll take it a step further. It has to be a radical product. It has to be something where, when people look at it, at first they say, 'I don't get it, I don't understand it. I think it's too weird, I think it's too unusual.'
I love what the Valley does. I love company building. I love startups. I love technology companies. I love new technology. I love this process of invention. Being able to participate in that as a founder and a product creator, or as an investor or a board member, I just find that hugely satisfying.
China is very entrepreneurial but has no rule of law. Europe has rule of law but isn't entrepreneurial. Combine rule of law, entrepreneurialism and a generally pro-business policy, and you have Apple.
An awful lot of successful technology companies ended up being in a slightly different market than they started out in.
If you're the village blacksmith and a model T comes along, you better become a mechanic. People's lives are better when they get news online versus having to wait for the morning paper. It's a lot more efficient, a lot more real time, a lot less waste.
It turns out that people - in every country in the world, there's a segment of buyer that wants the best product and the best experience. And that's what we're about providing.
Consistent alignment of capabilities and internal processes with the customer value proposition is the core of any strategy execution.
My half-baked reading of history is that we continue to go through these waves of entrepreneurial explosion followed by merger mania and consolidation. Out of that come big sluggish companies that eventually collapse under the weight of what they've created, and are killed off by the next wave of entrepreneurs.
Brands are all about trust. That trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.
Simply put: we don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services.
Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.
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