Reply #17: I'm a big fan of the risk takers. One reason America has

[alfredo]

peaked is because the business community is too conservative. They stopped innovating. Look at what happened to the big three auto makers. They didn't fight back against the Asian car makers with innovation, they stubbornly continued making their father's Oldsmobile.

US bicycle manufacturers sat on their fat asses and allowed the Japanese and Taiwanese eat their collective lunches. It's taken decades for the US bicycle industry to recover. We are now a center of small nimble companies building cutting edge machines. Count the number of American made bicycles in the Tour De France.

Apple has thrived because they weren't timid. They didn't hammer down the the nail sticking up, they promoted him/her. Think Different wasn't just a marketing slogan, it was the creed of Apple's design team.

Sony and Compaq paid attention to design. Compaq's efforts were clumsy, Sony's quite a bit better. HP made some nice looking boxes, but still you open them up and they were indistinguishable from the other commodity boxes on the shelf. Design seemed to be just skin deep. I've never opened a Sony, so I can't comment on the attention to detail on the inside.

Apple plowed money into R&D, whereas other US companies plowed their money into the pockets of their top officers. It didn't matter if the company died, just as long as they could grab a few million more by selling off the assets.