Competition causes more emphasis on older opportunities that we simply copy what has worked in the past. Let us consider the recently made mobile credit card readers. In October 2010, a startup called Square released a small, white, square-shaped product that allows any credit card to be swiped with an iPhone to accept payments. It was the first and best payment processing solution for mobile handsets. Competitors were immediately attracted to it. A Canadian company called NetSecure launched its own card reader in the shape of a half-moon. Intute brought it into cylindrical shape. In March 2012, eBay's PayPal unit launched its own Copycat card reader. It was in the shape of a triangle—which makes sense that it would not be finished from the Shakespearean period until it came out of its archeological shape.
At other times, the rivalry was just awkward and distracting. Larry Ellison, Oracle's co-founder and CEO, and Tom Siebel, Oracle's top salesman, had a Shakespearean conflict between the two prior to founding Siebel Systems in 1993. Alison's confidence was in tatters after Sybel's betrayal. Sibel hated the shadow of her former master. Two human beings were basically equal and hardworking who loved to sell and hated to harm - so they deeply hated each other. Alison and Sibel tried to break up with each other in the second half of the 90s. At one point, Ellison sent truckloads of ice cream sandwiches to Siebel's headquarters in an attempt to persuade Siebel employees to work for him. written on their wrapper? “Summer is near. Oracle is here. Come to brighten your career.
Amazingly, the Oracle deliberately accumulated enemies. Ellison's theory was that it is always good to have an enemy, until it starts to look dangerous. Unless it's big enough to threaten the company. In 1996, a small database company called Informix put up a billboard near Oracle's Redwood Shores headquarters that read: WARNING: DINOSAUR CROSSING. Another notice was written on the boundary road to the north: You have passed Redwood. Which we did too.
Oracle put up a billboard stating that Informix's software was slower than a snail.
Then Informix CEO Phil White decided to launch a personal attack. When White learned that Larry Ellison had taught the Japanese samurai to fly, he installed a new billboard depicting the Oracle logo with a broken samurai sword. The ad didn't even acknowledge Oracle as a company, it was a personal attack on Ellison. But perhaps White spent too much time worrying about the competition. He was busy making billboards. Informix then became embroiled in a massive accounts scandal, and White soon found himself in federal prison for securities fraud.
If you can't beat an opponent, it might be better to merge. I started Confinity in 1998 with my co-founder Max Levin. When we released the PayPal product in late 1999, Elon Musk's X.com was right up our heels: Our companies' offices were four blocks apart on University Avenue in Palo Alto, and X's product has mirrored ours. . By late 1999, we were at full-scale war. Many of us at PayPal worked up to 100 hours a week. There was no doubt that the work was adversarial, focused not on the objective but on defeating X.com. One of our engineers had actually prepared a bomb for the purpose; When he presented it schematically in a team meeting, it was discovered that the cause was extreme sleep deprivation.
But in February 2000, Alan and I were scared of the bubble of the booming tech boom, thinking to each other that a financial crash would doom us both before our fight was over. We met in early March at a cafe which was almost near our offices. Then we negotiated a 50-50 merger. It wasn't easy undermining yourself before the merger because of the rivalry, but it was good as far as problems go. We, as a united team, managed to ride out the dot com crash and build a successful business again.
Sometimes you have to fight. You must fight and win. There is no other option nor you can take any bet in this, so work hard and finish it fast.
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