Random Theories

Still reading the Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Several thoughts struck me as reading this.  I was particularly going through the chapter on the bell curve.  In this chapter, Taleb talks about network theory.  It says the more connected something is, the more stable it is to a point.  But there are certain nodes in that connection that can affect the entire ecosystem.  The edges of the system are incredibly stable, the center is highly affected by problems.

Which made me think of Apple.  Apple is a highly centralized company with a highly centralized development/distribution system.  Then compare their ecosystem to network theory.  With Apple, the central connector is Apple itself.  So the one thing that is most capable of being effected by a black swan is the center.  They have the possibility of other interconnections in their suppliers, but by and large those are mostly fungible.  Foxconn is probably their biggest non-direct control node.  Failures at Foxconn can temporarily bring the company to its knees.  Otherwise, they have deep control of their own black swans because they have deep control of their network nodes.  The biggest problem Apple faces is internal.  They are unlikely to be effected by large external variations.

Conversely, that also seems to mean that their explosive change and variation must also come from inside.  They can't have explosive growth in a non-center node that effects their entire system.  So Apple has direct control of their scale.

Google/Android operates under a different model.  They use the Microsoft model.  The Microsoft model uses a large, highly decentralized network to build resources.  Which creates two results.  1) They are highly affected by explosive growth in the wings of their network.  A side business that Google has no control of has the possibility to take complete market ownership.  2) They are capable of being negatively affected by wings of the network.  Depending on the strength of the network node, they could easily be taken down by a shift in an influential node.

Which shows the difference in two different development/business methods.  Neither is better or worse.  Just different.

I'm probably wrong.  Humans are notorious in being bad predictors.  I'm also very likely to have used affect/effect wrong in several places.

Anyways.