[CodeSheikh]

The reason there never will be a "fifth" horseman is because these four giant fishes keep devouring the little ones (startup acquisition/acqui-hire). Just because things happened in past a certain way, that does not necessarily mean those events can always be used as a predictability model for future. Stock market is at all time time. Are we headed towards crash? Maybe not. Maybe this is the time where we are setting new standards. Yes, all these four have slowed down their momentum of innovation. But that innovation also goes hand-in-hand with general intelligence and thirst for innovation from the general public. I hope to see one them entering into consumer health monitoring and diagnostics, beyond heart BPM or steps counting. I will give them another decade before I give up on them. I hope the author made some good bucks towards the end. He raised a good debate.

[greedo]

Who's to say the next horseman won't resist the advances from the big Four? Zuckerberg retained control for a long time, and it's not inconceivable that the Next Big Thing won't get acquihired.

[mholmes680]

everything has a price, no? especially a public company with shareholder voting rights...

[uiri]

I think Snapchat is a good example. The founder(s) still have a controlling interest in the company (or they did up until the IPO, at least). They want to build a company rather than sell it off. That's why they IPO'd, for instance.