Readit NewsNo examples included of "hard earned technical moats". I'm a bit skeptical that these really exist, other than in a few extreme cases. A true technical moat requires secrecy and control of the talent pool. SpaceX comes to mind, Nvidia might be another example.
I don't even think the current AI companies really have technical moats. It seems like the differentiator is just how much money they have to throw at compute.
Most moats are actually regulatory, ranging from copyright and patents, to anti-competitive regulation, to explicit wealth transfers from taxpayers to the company.
My list wasn't meant to exhaustive. Honestly not much of a list, just a few examples. SpaceX and Nvidia are both examples of deep technical moats, as are some of the others mentioned by commenters.
I agree with you that many moats are regulatory, but disagree that most moats are. Networks are powerful moats, customer lockin can work well, brand is a strong moat (at least for a time), speed and culture can function as moats.
Fwiw, I don't think any moat is ultimately perfect. Moats themselves are not meant to permanently stop an attacker - they are delaying tactics at best. Companies that stay ahead continuously re-invent and rebuild their differentiation and defenses.
akharris commented on Childhood leukemia: how a deadly cancer became treatable ourworldindata.org/childh... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
> he recalled that when starting his residency at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia in 1970, the survival rate for the sick children was only 30 percent
Jesus, 30 percent survival rate of children. I couldn't image working in that kind of situation and not be emotionally destroyed.
> Going from a 30 percent to an 80 percent cure rate, I'd say we are getting there
Your father is a literal hero.
Thank you.
What I love about that quote is that he knew that, some day, the cure rate would go even higher.
akharris commented on Childhood leukemia: how a deadly cancer became treatable ourworldindata.org/childh... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Sorry for your loss. He saved so many lives, what an incredible legacy he left on the world. He deserves to be celebrated widely. Please make a Wikipedia entry for his accomplishments?
Thank you. I've only ever had bad luck creating Wikipedia entries, though it's been a while.
akharris commented on Childhood leukemia: how a deadly cancer became treatable ourworldindata.org/childh... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Wow. Thank you for sharing. May his memory be a blessing to you and yours.
Thank you.
akharris commented on Childhood leukemia: how a deadly cancer became treatable ourworldindata.org/childh... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
akharris commented on Childhood leukemia: how a deadly cancer became treatable ourworldindata.org/childh... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
This obituary is so well written that it could be a front page star on HN. I am not joking. Incredible. You dad was the like the good guy version of the Terminator -- unstoppable in all forms.
Thank you.
My sister is an incredible write and he was a perfect subject.
Hm. Examples:
- Amazon? Long road to profitability, but there was fast early growth.
- Space-X, which took a long time to get to a successful launch.
- Someone already mentioned Nvidia.
- Waymo, which took about 15 years from start to real service, and now is doubling in size more than once a year.
- ASML, founded in 1984 and took a long time to become the dominant player in photolithograpy.
- Roblox, tiny for over a decade, then gradually found the right market and really grew.
Who else.
I particularly like Waymo because of aggressively most of the media/talking heads wrote them off as "never going to beat Tesla" because google.
In the end, they took a fundamentally different approach at all levels of the product and won.