[ehntoo]

The surrounding paragraph gives a bit more helpful context.

"A typical startup is built around a single product, and some theory that people will pay money for that product. This theory eventually become false, and the company goes away."

The link to towerrecordsmovie.com is suggesting that many single-product companies outlive their product's usefulness, such as Tower Records. Tower Records was a large seller of physical music media (CDs, Casettes, Vinyl) which went out of business in the mid-2000s.

The author is suggesting that since Fog Creek is not a single-product company that this does not apply to them.

[kristianc]

Incidentally, Tower Records didn't 'go away', it's still doing roaring business in Japan, specifically because Japanese like the tactile feel of CDs, and because Japan's anti-crime culture generally meant that file-sharing never became a thing [https://medium.com/cuepoint/the-tower-records-stuck-in-time-...].

A lot of the time when a product or service appears to have 'gone away' it's actually moved on to serving a different audience with different needs.

[dwightgunning]

I'm glad to hear this. I'll never forget the hour or so I spent at the Tower Records store in Shibuya in the mid-90s. That store was gigantic! As a twelve year old with limited pocket money i had a tough time choosing the 3rd, 4th and 5th CDs I'd ever owned. Good times!

[kristianc]

Same - the many hours I spent in Tower Records in Shibuya came to mind as I was writing this comment.

[Grue3]

It's still a huge store, I was there last year. I thought it's a Japanese company in the first place, but apparently it wasn't? One of the biggest Japanese convenience store chains, Lawson, also used to be an American chain.

[cestith]

I don't know what amount of revenue they run, but tower.com is I believe the same company. They closed the brick and mortar stores in markets where those weren't competitive. It's good to be flexible. You can choose to follow a market and live or die with it, or you can choose to follow the customers to the new market. In the US, most of the market for certain items is via online orders.

[rhizome]

Tower Japan isn't the same company. They bought themselves out of the parent company 15 years ago.

[vool]

We still have Tower in Ireland too, I think it's under a franchise agreement