innovation

Wondering if chat GPT plug-ins are the new App Store or the new Alexa skills. And, by extension, an admission that this is orders of magnitude less powerful than it looks.

Microsoft & Google adding generative AI into office apps is a classic pattern of incumbents making the new thing a feature. But the new thing generally also enables completely new ways to solve the problem. ‘Easier spreadsheets’ is less important than ‘why is that a spreadsheet?’

Most big technology companies are competitor focused. They see what others are doing, and then work to fast follow. In contrast, 90 to 95 percent of what we build in AWS is driven by what customers tell us they want.

One does not get a jet engine by improving the propeller. One does not breed horses until they give birth to a car. Telephones did not come from research on mail. Where on earth did the inspiration for the transistor and these other "leaps" of innovation come from to begin with?

Jobs: In the future, it won’t be an act of faith. The hard part of what we’re up against now is that people ask you about specifics and you can’t tell them. A hundred years ago, if somebody had asked Alexander Graham Bell, “What are you going to be able to do with a telephone?” he wouldn’t have been able to tell him the ways the telephone would aff... See more