Z
ZMystiCat
Guest
Some of it makes sense.
In some cases, it was a matter of standing out early on. Microsoft needed to make Windows stand out. Google needed a way to make their search engine stand out. Apple has pretty much always had at least one really strong competitor. Amazon couldn’t survive just selling books.
Some of it is financial security. Microsoft cares about the cloud because it is good for advancing their existing products (e.g. Office) or as a way to secure against that same cloud decreasing the relevance of Windows. Google cared about Chrome to help advance the platform of their products (i.e. web).
Some of it is the structure of the company. Google’s 20% projects are obviously going to bring out new products.
Some of it is just the nature of tech companies. Google, and I’d imagine Amazon too, would have invested a lot in web-based infrastructure, and they’re basically leveraging that infrastructure. Sometimes this comes out in obvious ways (e.g. YouTube and AWS respectively), but in general, a strong infrastructure will aid the company in general. It keeps employees happy, makes them productive, and can offer more to the products. (As a Google employee, one very common thing I talk about with co-workers is how much we love Google’s infrastructure compared to what we’ve seen at places like Facebook, Microsoft, and Oracle.)
Some of it is just customer pleasing. Google and Apple have shown that customers love “ecosystems”. Of course, some would argue that it hurts competition, since you can’t really build a startup around a full ecosystem, meaning only well-established companies are really in a place to take on Google or Apple. Sure, a startup could reach that point in 20 - 30 years, but that probably won’t put minds at ease.
In some cases, it was a matter of standing out early on. Microsoft needed to make Windows stand out. Google needed a way to make their search engine stand out. Apple has pretty much always had at least one really strong competitor. Amazon couldn’t survive just selling books.
Some of it is financial security. Microsoft cares about the cloud because it is good for advancing their existing products (e.g. Office) or as a way to secure against that same cloud decreasing the relevance of Windows. Google cared about Chrome to help advance the platform of their products (i.e. web).
Some of it is the structure of the company. Google’s 20% projects are obviously going to bring out new products.
Some of it is just the nature of tech companies. Google, and I’d imagine Amazon too, would have invested a lot in web-based infrastructure, and they’re basically leveraging that infrastructure. Sometimes this comes out in obvious ways (e.g. YouTube and AWS respectively), but in general, a strong infrastructure will aid the company in general. It keeps employees happy, makes them productive, and can offer more to the products. (As a Google employee, one very common thing I talk about with co-workers is how much we love Google’s infrastructure compared to what we’ve seen at places like Facebook, Microsoft, and Oracle.)
Some of it is just customer pleasing. Google and Apple have shown that customers love “ecosystems”. Of course, some would argue that it hurts competition, since you can’t really build a startup around a full ecosystem, meaning only well-established companies are really in a place to take on Google or Apple. Sure, a startup could reach that point in 20 - 30 years, but that probably won’t put minds at ease.
while I sojourned off for Lent.
God bless you all. 
I still have left 
