In another episode of the "Google is the new Microsoft" meme, I've been amused to see some VCs brag about how they plan to not invest in any company that potentially competes with Google in any space. Below are two examples I've noticed so far, I'm sure there are more that I've missed
In his blog post entitled The Kiko Affair, Paul Graham writes
Google may be even more dangerous than Microsoft, because unlike
Microsoft it's the favorite of technically minded users. When
Microsoft launched an application to compete with yours, the first
users they'd get would alway be the least sophisticated-- the ones
who just used whatever happened to be already installed on their
computer. But a startup that tries to compete with Google will
have to fight for the early adopters that startups can ordinarily
treat as their birthright.
...
The best solution for most startup founders would probably be
to stay out of Google's way. The good news is, Google's way is narrower than most people realize.
So far Google only seems to be good at building things for which
Google employees are the canonical users. That's because they
develop software by using their own employees as their beta users
...
They
tried hard; they made something good; they just happened to get hit
by a stray bullet. Ok, so try again. Y Combinator funded their
new idea yesterday. And this one is not the sort of thing Google employees would be
using at work. In fact, it's probably the most outrageous startup
idea I've ever heard. It's good to see those two haven't lost their
appetite for risk.
In his blog post entitled Thoughts on Google Apps, Paul Kedrosky writes
Finally, and this is mostly directed at people sending "Enterprise 2.0"
business plans my way: If you're thinking of doing something squarely
in Google's enterprise-lusting aim you need to ask yourself one
question only: Why? What makes you think that you can do it so much
better than Google can that the inevitable free Google Apps product
doesn't kick your ass out of the office market? I'm not saying it's
impossible, and there are plenty of things outside Google's aim --
including apps that are much more social by design than what Google
builds -- but the gate is 99% closed for bringing vanilla,mass-market
office apps to the web.
I guess these VCs are planning to stop investing in software companies since Google seems to be increasingly involved in almost every category of software products. I thought the entire point of being a VC was accepting the element of risk involved?