In the cutthroat arena of Big Tech, patience isn't just a virtue—it might be the whole damn game.
I've been covering tech investments since the early mobile revolution, and if there's one pattern that emerges time and again, it's the disconnect between what dazzles us today and what actually reshapes markets tomorrow. The latest investor buzz around Google and Meta offers a fascinating lens through which to examine this dynamic.
When some random retail investor tweets that "$GOOG and $META is the future of consumer," most of us scroll right past. Just another hot take in an ocean of investment hyperbole, right? But hang on a second. There's actually something substantive lurking beneath that simplified declaration.
What separates these two companies from the pack? Time. Or more specifically, their willingness to spend years—sometimes a decade or more—developing technologies before they ever see the commercial light of day.
This is remarkably different from the venture-backed pressure cooker that companies like OpenAI operate within. Don't get me wrong, OpenAI has accomplished extraordinary things. But their funding structure demands visible wins on timelines that sometimes collide with technological reality.
Look at Google's AI journey. When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, plenty of analysts claimed Google had missed the boat. Had it, though? The company had been publishing groundbreaking research papers on machine learning since before most Americans could define "neural network." Their Gemini rollout certainly stumbled (that historical image generation fiasco wasn't exactly their finest hour), but these are speed bumps on a highway they've been paving for fifteen years.
Meta's story follows similar contours. Remember when Zuckerberg changed the company name and everyone lost their minds? The metaverse concept became a punchline faster than you could say "digital avatar." Yet behind the scenes, Meta has methodically acquired talent, filed patents, and built spatial computing infrastructure since they bought Oculus back in 2014.
Public failures are part of the process. The question isn't whether a company fails publicly—they all do—but how they respond afterward.
I've interviewed dozens of engineers over the years who have moved between these organizations, and they consistently highlight the same thing: Google and Meta have built internal systems that can absorb public setbacks without abandoning promising technological directions. That's rare.
As for Apple being "asleep at the wheel"... well, that mischaracterizes how the company has always operated. Apple doesn't pioneer; it perfects. The iPhone wasn't remotely the first smartphone. The iPad didn't invent tablets. Vision Pro isn't the first headset to blend virtual and augmented reality.
(Though I'll admit, after testing Vision Pro myself last month, it's hard not to wonder if Apple's traditional playbook of refinement might be showing its limitations in the face of fundamental AI-driven shifts in computing.)
The dismissal of OpenAI from the consumer hardware race seems premature. Sure, building consumer devices requires institutional knowledge that takes years to accumulate—just ask the ghosts of Magic Leap's original ambitions. But OpenAI's partnership strategy could potentially let them leapfrog certain steps.
The bigger question is whether any organization can match what Google and Meta have built: machines that transform massive cash flows from existing businesses into patient capital for speculative technology. This isn't just about having deep pockets. Plenty of companies have money. It's about organizational DNA.
I remember sitting in a background briefing with Google research executives back in 2018 when they casually mentioned projects with 7-10 year horizons. No press releases, no fanfare—just the quiet confidence of a company playing a much longer game than quarterly earnings calls would suggest.
The real test won't be this year's demos or even next year's product launches. It'll be who can maintain the complex dance between research, development, and commercialization over the next decade.
Sometimes the simplest investment theses contain more wisdom than they first appear to. Google and Meta playing chess while others play checkers? It's reductive, sure—but there might just be something to it.
