are both coming for Apple. But they are more likely to produce a better
phone than to replicate the romance, connection, and general
awesomeness of Apple’s stores. So, every successful firm in the digital
age needs to ask: In addition to big, tall walls, where can I build deep
moats? That is, old-economy barriers that are expensive and take a
long time to dredge (and for competitors to cross). Apple has done this
superbly, continually investing in the world’s best brand, and in stores.
Amazon, also going for moats, is building a hundred-plus expensive
and slow-to-get-built warehouses. How old economy! A good bet is
Amazon will open thousands before they are done.
Recently Amazon announced leases on twenty 767s and purchased
thousands of Amazon-branded tractor-trailers.^45 ,^46 Google has server
farms and is launching early twentieth-century aviation technology
(blimps) into the atmosphere that will beam broadband down to
Earth.^47 Facebook, among the Four Horsemen, has the fewest old-
economy moats, making it the most vulnerable to an invading army
with big-ass ladders. You can expect that to change, as Facebook
announced they, along with Microsoft, are laying cable across the floor
of the Atlantic.^48
The success of single companies like Apple can hollow out entire
markets, even regions. The iPhone debuted in 2007, and devastated
Motorola and Nokia. Together they have shed 100,000 jobs. Nokia, at
its peak, represented 30 percent of Finland’s GDP and paid almost a
quarter of all of that country’s corporate taxes. Russia may have rolled
tanks into Finland in 1939, but Apple’s 2007 commercial invasion also
levied substantial economic damage. Nokia’s fall pummeled the entire
economy of Finland.^49 The firm’s share of the stock market has shrunk
from 70 to 13 percent.^50
What Might Be Next
If you look to the history of Apple and the rest of the Four, each started
in a separate business. Apple was a machine, Amazon a store, Google a
search engine, and Facebook a social network. In the early days, they
didn’t appear to compete with each other. In fact, it wasn’t until 2009