Well, of course, it’s cut-throat. And it’s almost completely about process, innovation, and software - nobody builds factories anymore, plans for a long haul, thinks about how after they milk the woolen mill with the undershot wheel for five years they’ll be able to build the nice overshot wheel-powered cotton mill and felter and you know that era is just so *gone.* Instead, everyone steals talent from one another, there’s very little loyalty, and remembers in the back of their mind that Facebook killed MySpace and Google killed AltaVista or Yahoo search or Microsoft killed Netscape or whatever and that there isn’t any hope of building something that some punk from Harvard or Stanford can’t come along and destroy in the time it takes to litter train a kitten.
—The most delightful email I’ve received in years.
