Listen for the Footsteps

Ben Evans had this great post about the ‘Inevitabilty of Technology‘. I really loved how he ended it:

The key thing, I think is that we have both those deterministic drivers of change and also luck, skill and brilliance. These can take you to different places. I wrote earlier this year about what you could have said in 2001 to be right about how mobile would develop. You could have got perhaps 90% there with the right determinants and vision, but would you have put a had-been computer company that had just launched a music player at the top of the heap? Steve Jobs supposedly said, returning to Apple, that his plan was to stay alive and grab onto the next big thing – to listen for the footsteps. He tried video, and a few other things, but he got there in the end. But he might not have.

I am addicted to looking at charts because I can look backward at others successes and failures to help me think about the future.

This chart from Charlie showing the Netflix rise against Blockbuster’s decline captures the Steve Jobs ‘footsteps’ line:

In 2007, the Blockbuster CEO said the following: “We have everything that Netflix has, plus the immediate gratification of never having to wait for a movie.”

Drops mic…and wallet.

Which brings me to this Tweet I saw that can be jumbled in many ways:

Building a lasting business is kind of a miracle. Money, cap tables, investors, lawyers, plans, people, competition, time, technology and listening to the footsteps.