YC Annual Letter 2017
<i>Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft have powerful advantages that are still not fully understood by most founders and investors....This trend is unlikely to reverse without antitrust action, and I suggest people carefully consider its implications for startups.</i><p>I think the &quot;startup community&quot; needs to have a serious conversation about this [2]. If we agree that machine learning is going to be a major underlying technology moving forward and that as a result, data is the new Oil [1], then the top 5 technology companies serve as the new Oil Barons.<p>It goes further than that actually in my mind, as these firms are disrupting themselves and innovating as fast if not faster in many areas than small startups can. They are in every industry and if they can&#x27;t move as fast, then they buy the talent or the whole team. Granted, a small team will always move faster, but I think that these mega corps know enough now to know that they can pivot on trends if needed.<p>I do worry about the likelihood of a startup that could beat google, facebook, microsoft etc... with humble roots. Maybe if a &quot;startup&quot; came in with 100M+ in funding, but more than likely at this point those companies would be funding that startup, if only for the intelligence value.<p>So while &quot;we&#x27;ve seen this before - someone always comes out of nowhere&quot; which gave rise to the current crop of major companies, it would have to be pretty left field at this point for a company to compete with the major players without investment from an arm of theirs. Considering Snapchat is the biggest IPO in the coming year, I don&#x27;t have a lot of hope that there will be something coming through.<p>[1]<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;07&#x2F;11&#x2F;data-oil-brainstorm-tech&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;07&#x2F;11&#x2F;data-oil-brainstorm-tech&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@andrewkemendo&#x2F;the-ai-revolution-will-be-different-from-the-microprocessor-revolution-cb417d324203" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@andrewkemendo&#x2F;the-ai-revolution-will-be-...</a>