Every company aspires to be big enough to integrate the entire stack and kick out all their competition. Only a few manage to do it.
There was never a new Microsoft. There was only Microsoft when they admitted they didn't have a stranglehold monopoly on PCs anymore.
It's as basic a strategy as anything you'd find in Art of War: When you're #2, cooperate with #3 to take down #1. When you're #1, pull up the ladder so #2 and #3 can't use it.
> The existence of company DNA is a marketing fib.
It isn't - company DNA doesn't always represent positive attributes.
Company culture, incentive structure, priorities and skill-sets are all part of what's given the shorthand "company DNA" (and all are self-reinforcing/self-replicating. Google's DNA makes it exceptional at developing and scaling complex web services, but terrible at product longevity (except for the break-out hits), and terrible at consumer electronics. Apple is mostly the opposite. In spite of all their efforts, both companies struggle to be half as good as the other one in the areas outside of their core competency, because of their respective company DNA.
Every company aspires to be big enough to integrate the entire stack and kick out all their competition. Only a few manage to do it.
There was never a new Microsoft. There was only Microsoft when they admitted they didn't have a stranglehold monopoly on PCs anymore.
It's as basic a strategy as anything you'd find in Art of War: When you're #2, cooperate with #3 to take down #1. When you're #1, pull up the ladder so #2 and #3 can't use it.