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Strategy in a World of Constant Change

Harvard Business Review

The moment I loved most was during the Q&A when an older gentleman asked Jobs a challenging question about the mouse as user interface technology: did it really compare favorably to the traditional keystroke approach? In it, he talked about the competitive advantage of Southwest Airlines, Vanguard Group and Progressive Insurance.

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Why We Shouldn’t Worry About the Declining Number of Public Companies

Harvard Business Review

In sum, digital strategies and rapid technological obsolescence increases the mortality rates among existing public firms, but does not correspondingly increase the demand for IPOs. Such acquisitions become more lucrative with rising first-mover advantages, pace of technological development, and network externality.

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A Survey of 3,000 Executives Reveals How Businesses Succeed with AI

Harvard Business Review

While it’s clear that CEOs need to consider AI’s business implications, the technology’s nascence in business settings makes it less clear how to profitably employ it. While investment in AI is heating up, corporate adoption of AI technologies is still lagging.

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Why Winner-Takes-All Thinking Doesn’t Apply to Silicon Valley

Harvard Business Review

And even if it did make that bet, the winner-takes-all business could credibly threaten to drop its prices at the first sight of competition. Currently, modern technology — fueled by software, the internet, and the cloud — makes it possible for a challenger to enter the market at minimal cost.

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What Groupon and LivingSocial Cannot Offer

Harvard Business Review

But a new study shows that no amount of buzz, excitement or first mover's advantage will lead a product to sustained growth. In business, we too often forget that what we are selling is value: we instead try to sell technology, or packaging, or just plain vaporware. At least that is the conventional wisdom.

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Strategy and The Uncertainty Excuse

Harvard Business Review

This is an argument I hear particularly often in high-technology sectors. They may be strategizing their way to first mover advantages and positions that leave few if any attractive options in the market. There isn't enough certainty, they argue, to be able to do strategy effectively.

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How AI Will Change Strategy: A Thought Experiment

Harvard Business Review

AI is fundamentally a prediction technology. Perhaps they were lulled into complacency by the initially slow adoption rate of this technology in the early days of the commercial internet (1995-1998). How will AI change strategy? All this is due to the single act of turning the dial on the prediction machine.