magma wrote:Yeah, there will. One thing we've seen with new technologies coming through, is that start-ups often get he jump on the established empires who are slow to adapt... it might not be enough to topple the empire, but footholds can definitely be found. For instance LG's rise over the last 10 years through cheap flat panel TV and cheap mobile phones means they now have a market position where they can offer mobile products at competitive quality and price points with Apple, Nokia and Samsung; HTC aren't too far behind in the mobile markets though still arguably in their "smartphone-on-a-budget" phase. Microsoft have made failed attempt after failed attempt to capitalise on mobile phone software - if you'd asked anyone in 1998 who was going to be the king of the Mobile OS in 2013, you would've answered Microsoft without much hesitation; but unless you're a business or XBox user, they're almost off the map nowadays. People don't even automatically pick Windows for their new laptops anymore.
In the automotive industry, I think it's a little bit more difficult - probably because of the up front investment needed to get a mass-produced vehicle onto the market - if you've got a factory already, you're in a huge position of advantage, but we've seen a great deal of the leaps forward in green technology coming from tiny companies - Tesla for example.... the old giants have struggled, especially the American ones - the current conditions in Detroit are a pretty good demonstration of how spectacularly old dinosaurs can fall from grace when faced with major market change... while the rest of the world has been gaining market share over the last 25 years by producing compacts and lately hybrid and electric cars, GM are still clinging onto the last century mass-producing SUVs and muscle cars with inappropriately inefficient engines for 2013.. and Detroit has become a modern wasteland, effectively America's first third-world city as a result.
I think hubb's Pixar example has its parallels in the automotive industry too, though not on such a market-changing scale perhaps - Horacio Pagani leaving Lamborghini to start his own independent marque.
It's definitely not 'sewn up', but industries with bigger economies of scale will always tend to favour established producers as long as they don't entirely fuck the game up (see GM).
+1. "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christenson is a great read on this. My opinion is that we will always have new startups that will eventually take the place of the current market leaders. It's much harder in the manufacturing/automotive industries as there are quite a few barriers that create giant moats around these companies (ie. initial capital costs, customer loyalty/recognition of the brand).
When a company is big enough it becomes focused on creating shareholder value, which oftentimes causes it to overlook upcoming technologies as they just aren't profitable. This creates a hole in the market where upcoming businesses can focus on becoming industry leaders in these niche products. The introduction to The Innovators Dilemma goes over this in detail when looking at the hard disk drive industry, which I found pretty interesting.
Acquisitions are a pretty big trend for market leaders right now and it will be interesting to see how this shapes the future of new startups. At the moment, most people who I talk to who are working on entrepreneurial projects (and are all in the tech/software industry) have a focus on being acquired in the future. With that said, startups are usually a bit more agile when there are changing pressures in the marketplace as long as they have enough capital to change directions.
, morality is something we discuss as being mostly social programming - which is incredibly unhelpful, dangerous and a bit like saying everybody is just brainwashed. 
