Reply to post: So which company do you think DID see the future often?

So which company do you think DID see the future often?

Google bought Maps, Android, Nest and many others - search is basically their only successful home grown product. If you want to know which products Google developed internally, look at those long lists of products Google has canceled. That's always the fate for stuff they come up with themselves.

Apple bought NeXT and based macOS/iOS on it, bought FingerWorks to get the capacitive touch software that made iPhone/iPad possible, bought Siri to bring the first 'assistant' to a phone.

If a company has to develop everything themselves to be successful, the only successful companies are those with a single product. As far as I can tell, it has never happened that a company with a single product anywhere near as successful as Google Search or Windows internally developed a SECOND product of similar success.

Maybe seeing the future doesn't need to take place before it happens, and being the one to recognize the potential of something that others miss and deciding to become the company that takes it from a niche where it will be forgotten is also of value. Nobody would remember Xerox's GUI if Jobs hadn't seen it, "stole" it and expanded on the idea to turn it into the modern GUI. Where would Android be today without Google? It probably wouldn't even warrant an entry on Wikipedia today, rather whatever Google bought instead of Android would likely be the dominant competitor to iPhone.