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I think that's a very standard VC line I've encountered in the startup world, but the stats just don't bear it out. Pick any software business - productivity tools, marketing, data providers, security, UX, medical/healthcare - and the reality is always that 1-5 big companies dominate, while 100s or 1000s of smaller companies, many that fit with the ideas of the "calm company" philosophy, are profitable and even growing (albeit more slowly). The "winner take all" mentality isn't even true in the sectors where it's supposed to be a hard and fast rule. Social media platforms have a half dozen dominant players, and another 40-50 businesses that are successful by the calm definition. Search engines - Google dominates, but another half dozen and a few hundred vertical search engines (in travel, B2B data, real estate, ecommerce of every kind, etc.) have 10s to 100s of millions in revenue. Until I see an economy-wide analysis of this "winner takes all" rule, with massive numbers of sectors where no small/calm companies are surviving, will I believe this is true. Seems to me like the "riches in the niches" saying is actually the rule, but it doesn't fit with the unicorn-or-bust returns model of large venture funds. |