I don't know why this was voted down, but there is merit to it.
Successful, world changing product launches are mostly serendipity, luck, and timing. You could have the right product at the wrong time, or the wrong product at the right time, or both. Most of the home runs (Google Search, iPod, iPhone, Windows 95, etc) happened because of simultaneous fit of product and time. I'd argue the original Mac was too early, and Win95 was timed right.
In 1984, the vast majority of people weren't ready for a home computer, especially at $5000+ in 2017 dollars. Computing was still highly technical and reserved for specialists -- even though the Mac wanted to change that. It wasn't until the mid 90s and into 2000s, where hundreds of millions of people were ready to integrate computers as "must haves" as part of their life. Microsoft rode that wave, the way Google rode the wave of the internet explosion, and Apple rode the wave of the mobile that had been building.
Everyone's looking for the "next big thing", they're spending money like crazy in a thousand different directions: AI, AR, VR, Health, Cars, etc. But no one knows.
There's the assumption that it's AI, because of the scale, but does AI need a big company? Part of the assumption is you need lots of data, an inherent advantage for big companies, but what if you don't?
AlphaGoZero just proved, that unlike AlphaGo, you can start with nothing, and still succeed.
Silicon Valley executives fear the big AI breakthrough will happen at a small startup, come out of nowhere, and disrupt them. AI firms are being bought almost as soon as they form with no product.
All the while, what if the next big breakthrough isn't even AI? What if it's battery chemistry? If someone discovers a battery with just 10x the density, it would change everything. For example, drones could fly for 5 hours instead of 30 minutes. What would that enable?
It's hard to compute what the downstream effects of small disruptive changes in tech will bring, and if history is any guide, new companies will come out of no where with shocking results.
One of the things small scrappy startups can do is, ignore the bad rep and government oversight. A large company that missteps will grab the world's attention, so they have to be risk averse, which means slow. Google can't ship a self driving car that kills people, but startups can ship self driving aftermarket add-ons that do, because in the worst case, they lose the investors money, and they start another company, they don't end up exploding $200 billion in market cap.
>AlphaGoZero just proved, that unlike AlphaGo, you can start with nothing, and still succeed.
There are various types of AI. The type of AI AlphaGo is something that needs computing power and smart people. The kind of AI you see in Google Photos and Translate is what needs large amounts of data.
Successful, world changing product launches are mostly serendipity, luck, and timing. You could have the right product at the wrong time, or the wrong product at the right time, or both. Most of the home runs (Google Search, iPod, iPhone, Windows 95, etc) happened because of simultaneous fit of product and time. I'd argue the original Mac was too early, and Win95 was timed right.
In 1984, the vast majority of people weren't ready for a home computer, especially at $5000+ in 2017 dollars. Computing was still highly technical and reserved for specialists -- even though the Mac wanted to change that. It wasn't until the mid 90s and into 2000s, where hundreds of millions of people were ready to integrate computers as "must haves" as part of their life. Microsoft rode that wave, the way Google rode the wave of the internet explosion, and Apple rode the wave of the mobile that had been building.
Everyone's looking for the "next big thing", they're spending money like crazy in a thousand different directions: AI, AR, VR, Health, Cars, etc. But no one knows.
There's the assumption that it's AI, because of the scale, but does AI need a big company? Part of the assumption is you need lots of data, an inherent advantage for big companies, but what if you don't?
AlphaGoZero just proved, that unlike AlphaGo, you can start with nothing, and still succeed.
Silicon Valley executives fear the big AI breakthrough will happen at a small startup, come out of nowhere, and disrupt them. AI firms are being bought almost as soon as they form with no product.
All the while, what if the next big breakthrough isn't even AI? What if it's battery chemistry? If someone discovers a battery with just 10x the density, it would change everything. For example, drones could fly for 5 hours instead of 30 minutes. What would that enable?
It's hard to compute what the downstream effects of small disruptive changes in tech will bring, and if history is any guide, new companies will come out of no where with shocking results.
One of the things small scrappy startups can do is, ignore the bad rep and government oversight. A large company that missteps will grab the world's attention, so they have to be risk averse, which means slow. Google can't ship a self driving car that kills people, but startups can ship self driving aftermarket add-ons that do, because in the worst case, they lose the investors money, and they start another company, they don't end up exploding $200 billion in market cap.