Can anybody explain why tech circles are so prone to doomsday predictions? I don't see so many proclamations of impending demise in other industries, but in tech, a newcomer would be forgiven for thinking that most of the large incumbents are poised to drop dead and 'die' tomorrow. Why so anarchist?
Because we see it happen so often. Technical companies feel much more active than manufacturing, retail and industrial companies. Apple all but disappeared, then surged back to life. GTE grew organically as a telephone company, then ate a bunch of internet companies and split/merged until parts became Verizon and parts Level 3. Software companies mushroom out of nothingness, become buzzwords, then disappear in a morass of infighting and bad decisions.
Not anarchist, but disruptive. The attitude comes from five decades of technology innovation rapidly rendering its competition utterly obsolete without warning. Picasso once said "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge", and the hacker community understands that the urge to create is also a destructive urge.
Um... you realize this is a news site for STARTUPS. The entire point of which is to develop new business models and "kill" incumbent competitors. So I guess we like to focus on the mortality of companies, as it is often a techie who is implementing his own version of doomsday and demise on large incumbents. All through creation (new technology, new media, new models, new information) ironically enough.
