Why big tech keeps kicking your butt

Podcaster Alex Kantrowitz discusses how big tech companies are able to keep reinventing themselves and succeeding.

No matter the circumstances and economic outlook, tech’s ‘big five’ — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft — somehow emerge from every disruptive event stronger.

Alex Kantrowitz, founder of the Big Technology Podcast, has written a new book called ‘Always Day One’ that explains why.

In it, he explains how the largest technology companies have mastered the art of reinventing themselves through cultures that optimise for tomorrow’s demand, not today’s legacy products, and make use of cutting-edge AI to run their operations on autopilot.

Alex also pointed out that the most successful companies don’t rest on their laurels when it comes to developing new ideas, “last century, the average company lasted on the S&P for 75 years. It basically took one good idea to spend a lifetime on the S&P. Now, that’s 15 years. You need three, three-and-a-half ideas to stay on the S&P 500 for as long as you used to.”

Alex Kantrowitz, founder of the Big Technology Podcast, was in conversation with VICE’s Matthew Champion on the Book Summit stage at Web Summit 2022.

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Main image of Alex Kantrowitz onstage at Web Summit 2022: Lukas Schulze/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)