I think it comes down to leadership.<p>Put simply, monopolies <i>do</i> have greater capacity to innovate. When you&#x27;re stuck in brutal competition, it&#x27;s hard to funnel money into research which might not pay off for decades—your competition might have driven you out of business by that point.<p>On the other hand, the allure of monopoly profits is hard to ignore. It&#x27;s tempting to simply funnel the profits into shareholder pockets and that&#x27;s the approach investors will generally favor. For any middling CEO, it&#x27;s the path of least resistance.<p>This is why founder-controlled monopolies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) are such a potent force. They have the incentive to preserve the companies long-term legacy (it&#x27;s their personal legacy as well) through ambitions projects while also having the credibility and power to resist investor preferences for short-term profits.