renaissance, and is the first factor in the T Algorithm. If you don’t have
a product that is truly differentiated, you have to resort to an
increasingly dull, yet expensive, tool called advertising.
2. Visionary Capital
The second competitive factor among the Four is the ability to attract
cheap capital by articulating a bold vision that is easy to understand.
In chapter 4 we discussed how visionary capital works for Amazon, but
it is an advantage shared by three of the Four Horsemen.
Google’s vision: Organizing the world’s information. Simple,
compelling, and a reason to buy the stock. Google has more money to
invest in engineers than any media company in history. That lets it
design more “stuff,” including autonomous vehicles.
Facebook’s vision: Connecting the world. Consider how important
and generally awesome that could be. Facebook is now worth more
than Walmart, and surpassed $400 billion in market value.^1 Similar to
Google, it too can place more bets and offer more generous parental
leave, hire buses that transport you to work, turn the roof of your
office building into a park, and even pay for you to freeze your eggs so
you can delay that whole procreation thing and devote yourself to a
real contribution to the species—connecting the world.
Meanwhile, over Thanksgiving weekend 2016, Amazon captured
the largest overall share of organic results for top gift items.^2 Amazon
is Google’s biggest customer. Is search a skill set? No doubt, Amazon is
great at search, but its SEO skill would be Wayne Gretzky without a
stick if it didn’t throw tens of millions of cash at the issue. One in six
people start their search for products using Google,^3 making it the
equivalent of the second biggest (first is Amazon) retail store window
in the world. Fifty-five percent start on Amazon. Take Macy’s windows
on Christmas and make it the size of Everest and K2—that’s the size of
the windows into the world that Google and Amazon search results
represent in the fastest growing channel: online commerce.
Anyone can purchase a place in that window and land at the top of
a Google search. When someone types in “Star Wars action figures,”
the retailer that has bid the most is going to top the paid listings.