The Evolution of Computing: From Mainframes to Smartphones

Technology is a progression of new ideas and new platforms gobbling up the one that came before. In the world of computers we went from mainframes to mini computers to PCs. And then came the mobile phone, which, in the form of the smartphone, has dwarfed them all. But what does that to mobile? When you have already gotten to everybody on earth, what comes along that is 10X the size?

a16z’s Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky offer their thoughts on where technology is today, why the perfection of the current crop of PCs signals the category’s collapse, and what happens after the smartphone.