Competing with BigCo: 2018 Edition

Today startups are facing massive technology companies in varying degrees of extreme PMF — which is why the public markets are valuing these companies so highly. The markets know that in the foreseeable future, it is highly unlikely these companies can do very much to break the flow of profits.

This is very different, though, than looking to these companies for what comes next or where the next big thing is going to be. Yet as we see these are often conflated. If history is any lesson, the next big thing will almost certainly come from a new company building a new product in a new way (editor note, Apple was essentially a brand new company in 1998).

As the new year begins in earnest, here’s a broad but worthwhile exploration of the competitive opportunities laid bare by the strategic maneuverings of incumbents like Google, Apple, Amazon AWS, Microsoft, and Adobe.