Not so hot take: The Soul of a New Machine is a story of a company with no moat.
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Kidder covers the story of an amazing effort to build a new computer in the minicomputer wars of the 70s. 10 years later, Data General was a has-been, and 20 years later, it was gone.
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The lesson isn’t “oh, you need a moat (or Power, ala 7 Powers) to be a successful business” — although that much is true! DG did die 20 years later!
The lesson is that moatless companies can live a LONGGG time. (Though to be precise DG was killed more by disruption than arb).
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If you’re new here, I wrote a members-only summary of 7 Powers a few days back; if you’d like to read the highlights, they’re in this thread:
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I just published a 10400 word members-only summary of 7 Powers on Commonplace, probably my longest post ever. I've not seen very many summaries that do a good job of representing the nuances of Helmer's framework. So here's a thread on the highlights. commoncog.com/blog/7-powers-
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