For tech start-ups, relentless focus can be critical. Google’s famous mission statement, to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, shaped its early priorities. A spate of upgrades to the search engine in its early years, from image search and maps to shopping and news, left it unrecognisable from where it started. By the time Microsoft launched a head-on challenge with Bing nine years later, it was already pretty much game over.
對科技初創公司而言,保持極致專注往往是成功關鍵。谷歌(Google)那句著名的使命宣言:“整合全球信息,使人人皆可訪問并從中受益”,曾深刻塑造了其早期戰略重心。這家搜索引擎在最初那些年接連升級,推出圖片搜索、地圖,還有購物、新聞,已經和最初的樣子判若兩物。等到九年后微軟(Microsoft)推出必應(Bing)向其發起正面挑戰時,勝負其實早就已成定局。