Читать книгу The Unintended Consequences of Technology - Chris Ategeka - Страница 30

When anyone is building something big, things are bound to get messy, but no one anticipated the extent at which we would experience the messiness of tech-state. As many as 9 out of 10 startups fail. Entrepreneur and contributor Neil Patel (2014) mentioned a few reasons as to why this many fail in his write-up for Forbes magazine.

He says that those who fail maybe made a product no one wants, or ignored some important parts of their business. Other times it's the hyper growth the company is not prepared for. Growth—fast growth—is what entrepreneurs crave, investors need, and markets want. Rapid growth is the sign of a great idea in a hot market. However, without the right infrastructure in place, rapid growth can be a liability. If your startup lasts, you're lucky. You've been able to do something that 90% of new businesses haven't (Patel, 2014).

Even the ones left standing sometimes end up failing later. That's why companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and their fellow tech giants had to weather many storms to become what they are today. Pivots, stolen ideas, and even firings are commonplace. Steve Jobs was once famously forced out of his own company that he founded. But by embracing uncertainty and making timely pivots, some tech companies end up becoming some of the most influential—and valuable—organizations on the planet, with power that rivals or exceeds their nation-states. Let's take Facebook and Google as examples:

 Tech-state: Facebook

 Population: 2.7 billion (2019)

 Capital: Palo Alto

 Nationality: Users

 Valuation: $720 billion (August 2020)

 Founder: Mark Zuckerberg

In total, Facebook has more than 3.14 billion account holders across its platforms, which include acquired companies like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger (Newton, 2020).

 Tech-state: Google

 Population: 1 billion (2020)

 Capital: Mountain View

 Nationality: Users

 Valuation: $1 trillion (2020)

 Founders: Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Google's search engine market share is more than 90%. Considering that there are almost 4.39 billion Internet users, the number of Google users worldwide is nearly four billion. Google usage statistics show Google Photos has over 1 billion active users. There were over 1.8 billion active Gmail users in 2020. YouTube has 2.3 billion users worldwide. This is just a small taste of only four out of the many products Google offers its customers.