Here is the video which they should have put in the post:
https://global.honda/content/dam/site/global-en/topics-new/c...
replies(16):
https://global.honda/content/dam/site/global-en/topics-new/c...
But it also illustrates that I've seen in the Bay Area time and time again, which is that once you demonstrate that something is doable (as SpaceX has) It opens the way for other capital to create competitive systems.
At Google, where I worked for a few years, it was interesting to see how Google's understanding of search (publicly disclosed), and the infrastructure to host it (kept secret) kept it comfortably ahead of competitors until the design space was exhausted. At which point Google stopped moving forward and everyone else asymptotically approached their level of understanding and mastery.
I see the same thing happening to SpaceX. As other firms master the art of the reusable booster, SpaceX's grasp on the launch services market weakens. Just as Google's grasp of the search market weakens. Or Sun's grasp of the server market weakened. When it becomes possible to buy launch services from another vendor which are comparable (not necessarily cheaper, just comparable) without the baggage of the damage Elon has done, SpaceX will be in a tougher spot.
It also helps me to understand just how much SpaceX needs Starship in order to stay on top of the market.
Some folks will no doubt see this as casting shade on SpaceX, I assure you it is not. What SpaceX's engineering teams have accomplished remains amazing and they deserve their success. It is just someone who has been through a number of technology curves noting how similar the they play out over their lifetimes.
Having witnessed first hand how DEC felt that Sun's "toy computers" would never eclipse DEC in the Server business, and watched as United Launch Alliance dismissed Falcon 9 as something that would never seriously challenge their capabilities, it feels almost prophetic to watch SpaceX's competitors emerge.
I also won't forget the marketing department at the camera company I worked at, dismissing the iPhone, when it first came out (it ended up eating their lunch).
RIM got so completely smoked with their ten year development cycles. It’s amazing if that they still have a business today to be honest.
There's also an entertaining movie based on this book, a rare business film that is more about failure than success.
They are so far ahead even their biggest competitor can’t comprehend what they’re doing.
At the time, data was mondo expensive. Everyone was stuck low-bandwidth. Then when the iphone launched, Jobs + Apple did an exclusive with Cingular/AT&T. The talk at the time, was it was a bidding war -- they all wanted the iphone on their network first.
That exclusive opened the door to a phone manufacturer, for the first time, negotiating bandwidth, new data plans and more. RIM didn't have a lot of software that was high bandwidth, because the carriers wouldn't even allow it before Apple broke that hold.
So suddenly here's this new phone, with an exclusive, and with actual usable web browsing with a usable data plan price.... and RIM still begging for that.
(Obviously RIM still could have caught up if they didn't drop the ball, but this was a big shift in the market)