Quick thought: What counts as a “company” and what counts as “one year of effort”? If Alphabet’s board and directors decided for some reason to divert 99% of the company’s resources towards buying up coal companies and thereby becomes a world leader in the coal industry, does that count? What if Alphabet doesn’t buy the companies outright but instead headhunts all of their employees and buys all the necessary hardware and infrastructure?
Similarly, you specified that it needs to be a “tech company”, but what exactly differentiates a tech company from a regular company? (For this at least I’m guessing there’s likely a standard definition, I just don’t know what it is.)
It seems to me that the details here can make a huge difference for predictions at least.
I agree this is an important question. From the post:
given the choice to do so — in the form of agreement among its Board and CEO — with around one year of effort following the choice.
I.e., in the definition, the “company” is considered to have “chosen” once the Board and CEO have agreed to do it. If the CEO and Board agree and make the choice but the company fails to do the thing — e.g., because the employees refuse to go along with the Board+CEO decision — then the company has failed to execute on its choice, despite “effort” (presumably, the CEO and Board telling their people and machines to do stuff that didn’t end up getting done).
As for what is or is not a tech company, I don’t think it matters to the definition or the post or predictions, because I think only things that would presently colloquially be considered “tech companies” have a reasonable chance at meeting the remainder of the conditions in the definition.
Quick thought: What counts as a “company” and what counts as “one year of effort”? If Alphabet’s board and directors decided for some reason to divert 99% of the company’s resources towards buying up coal companies and thereby becomes a world leader in the coal industry, does that count? What if Alphabet doesn’t buy the companies outright but instead headhunts all of their employees and buys all the necessary hardware and infrastructure?
Similarly, you specified that it needs to be a “tech company”, but what exactly differentiates a tech company from a regular company? (For this at least I’m guessing there’s likely a standard definition, I just don’t know what it is.)
It seems to me that the details here can make a huge difference for predictions at least.
I agree this is an important question. From the post:
I.e., in the definition, the “company” is considered to have “chosen” once the Board and CEO have agreed to do it. If the CEO and Board agree and make the choice but the company fails to do the thing — e.g., because the employees refuse to go along with the Board+CEO decision — then the company has failed to execute on its choice, despite “effort” (presumably, the CEO and Board telling their people and machines to do stuff that didn’t end up getting done).
As for what is or is not a tech company, I don’t think it matters to the definition or the post or predictions, because I think only things that would presently colloquially be considered “tech companies” have a reasonable chance at meeting the remainder of the conditions in the definition.