On a 10- to 20-year horizon, large-scale technological innovation is going to center around machine intelligence, robotics and sensors. Each of these fields requires gargantuan amounts of capital and a lot of patience, a combination well beyond the scope of even the most progressive venture capital firm.
As Google has demonstrated with its self-driving car, the combination of machine intelligence, robotics and sensors can already perform better than a human at a complex task such as driving a car, something that 10 years ago was unthinkable to most people.
No doubt, Tesla has built an amazing car and after much trial and tribulation, brought it to market. However, General Motors had already shipped a production electric car years before. Tesla took advantage of the innovator’s dilemma, where legacy car companies are virtually incapable of embracing electric-only cars and integrating modern electronics.
Tesla’s roadmap includes “autopilot” and eventually “autonomous” features. Perhaps Tesla also will deliver these features slightly before legacy car manufacturers do, including Mercedes and Lexus, which are aggressively adding similar features. But the winner in this game is Google, which has a multi-year technology lead and can extract enormous licensing fees.
via JLG.