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> But from a Microsoft shareholder's point of view it was a disaster.

The disaster is not in inventing the next technology, because if you don't someone else will do so anyway. The failure is failing to exploit what you invented before anyone else does.

But that's inherently difficult to do. Large organizations are usually oriented towards rewarding and incentivizing what makes them money today.

It's easier to be a real start-up than an internal startup at a large company, because it's hard to duplicate real-world market incentives internally.