When I was a kid, Nintendo was the king of video game consoles, no one, not even Sega, could touch 'em. If you would've told me that within a decade Nintendo would be the third ranked console game maker and Sega wouldn't even be in the fight I would've called you a flat out liar, right there to your face.

It was inconceivable that Nintendo could fall so far, so fast. And now, while my daughter and I sometimes enjoy a mean game of Mario Kart Wii, chances are high my children will grow up never asking for Nintendo anything for Christmas or birthdays, something that a kid from my generation couldn't even imagine¹.

I bring up this example because there seems to be a pervasive thought among people I know that it's too late to start something, every idea has already been done to death, every thought written down. So let's see if that really is the case, shall we?

No Way I could build a billion dollar company

You might be interested to know that the Fortune 500 turns over about 30 companies annually. Here's the top 10 on the list over three different periods.

While there are some companies with staying power, there are also new additions. In fact, this is entirely normal:

Because no company, no matter how successful, lasts forever, and because only a fraction of companies survive more than a few decades, turnover of varying degrees is entirely natural.

Because this ebb and flow of new companies onto, and off, the list is a natural occurrence, it means there is always time to start a new company.

It's impossible to make a living as an Author

This one is near and dear to my heart, not just because it's an inside joke in my family, but because my brother-in-law actually just published his first novel. Let's take a look at the best selling authors over three different periods².

As you can see, there is a ton of turnover on those lists³, which means there's plenty of room for your great american novel. So you know, get to work!

I could never build a best selling iOS app

This one is for me, not only because it's my job, but I've even been working on my own app while learning Swift. And it's easy for me to think there is no possibility of my app breaking out, but⁴...

Angry birds pretty much dominated 2012, but if you go check the overall top app lists right now (don't worry, I'll wait) you'll see Angry Birds is no where to be found in the top 10 anymore.

So what's your point?

Take any other industry or segment and you will likely find similar churn⁵. This isn't to say your idea will rise to the top, or that it will be easy. On the contrary, it will take a tremendous amount of work, lot's of concentrated effort, and a little bit of luck (the actual luck and the self made kind). This was just to show you that nothing is set in stone, and things do change, in fact, they seem to be changing faster than ever. And as my wife so succinctly put it, "there's always room for the next big thing."

Supplemental Material

Some other things I've found since this was written.

Jerry Neumann

The 25 largest companies by market cap every 15 years from 1927-2017. The ones in yellow are those that were top 25 in 1927, or their offspring. Changing the guard is slow, then sudden.

Michael Batnick:

In 1990, eight of the ten largest companies in the world were from Japan. Today, eight of the ten largest are from the United States.

source

Travis Fairchild:

here is a look at the number of Top 10 names that have historically drifted from the largest 10 over the next decade. The average in the U.S. has been around 6-7 on average.

Patrick McKenzie in 2019:

Question I get fairly frequently: is it still possible to make money in startups or as a creator on the Internet, or has the opportunity passed or been sewed up by AppAmaGooBookSoft or similar?

The answer to this: unambiguously, yes, opportunities are changing but better.

You should prefer being a founder in 2019 to being in the same position in 2009 or 1999. The larger market, much better ecosystem, existence of mobile, better OSS, etc swamp the impact of year to year availability of capital or increased competition or what have you.

Now given that you may not have a time machine available and aren’t choosing between those periods but are actually choosing “start now” or “start later” I think it’s a nuanced conversation but in general I’d be in the “bias towards earlier” camp.

The nuance is mostly about your relative rate of skill/network/etc growth and leverage available at whatever the thing you’re doing right now versus the likely higher-but-different skill growth and very variable leverage available from running something.

I just found this screenshot on my desktop, seems relevant also: