Well none of them were the first to do what they did. None of them actually pioneered anything, the ideas were in the air.
Google was an improved HITS algorithm and the infrastructure of infoseek (copied). They weren't the only search engine to do link analysis. There were others.
You think Yahoo! was the first portal? Or Netscape the first browser?
Facebook was not the first social network. MySpace/Friendster were also pretty big back then.
You can say they executed better, but at the time, my friend, it wasn't such a sure bet.
That's the way it is with innovation, and that's why companies fail so hard, and so fast. No one really knows what's going on.
You give them fundamental attribution due to the survival bias found in innovative industries.
I'm sorry, but you mistake what I mean by pioneering; they may have not been the first in their field, but their methods were pioneering, otherwise they wouldn't be as big as they are.
Facebook wasn't the first social network, nor was MySpace, but the fact that they are the biggest now says something. The same can be said for Google; Yahoo! was massive, but their priority wasn't search, it was being a portal.
Also, failure isn't necessarily a bad thing; who are we without our mistakes?
Google was an improved HITS algorithm and the infrastructure of infoseek (copied). They weren't the only search engine to do link analysis. There were others.
You think Yahoo! was the first portal? Or Netscape the first browser?
Facebook was not the first social network. MySpace/Friendster were also pretty big back then.
You can say they executed better, but at the time, my friend, it wasn't such a sure bet.
That's the way it is with innovation, and that's why companies fail so hard, and so fast. No one really knows what's going on.
You give them fundamental attribution due to the survival bias found in innovative industries.
You forget the many failures.