The Autonomy Question Again

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The low volume in many these things is what sortof makes it really, really difficult. And so we cand hove come back to the autonomy question again, like with the electric piece. The bare case is nenaa tas is competing in cars. Tesra is competing with car companies at doing cars, and they're competing with software companies at doing software. But where do you want to put yourself within that bet?

In this re-run from September 2018, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky talk all about Tesla — and more broadly, the nature of disruption overall. How disruptive is Tesla really, and what exactly are they disrupting — from the dashboard to car makers to vendors to energy source to autonomy overall?

The tech industry is littered with leading innovators... who nonetheless failed to be the dominant leader in the end. So the question should be, is this new thing fundamentally difficult for the incumbent to do, and how does it relate to market dominance? Which of these things are important in order for Tesla to be the new BMW or the new GM? Looking back at other examples historically (Microsoft, GM's Saturn Brand, and of course the iPhone), what kind of disruption matters most for market dominance? And what is the long view of how software is eating transportation?