A LAND WITHOUT GIANTS

The essay argues that the tech industry is in a "land without giants," because emerging founders copy the behaviors of dominant archetypes such as Steve Jobs, and that this limits how far the field's progress can go. The author writes that Steve Jobs was obsessed with Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, and took the "intersection of technology and the liberal arts" phrase directly from him. The author cites Brian Chesky's hiring of Hiroki Asai, a former Apple marketing executive with 16 years at the company, as an example of this emulation. The author contends that the field needs new archetypes and asks whether founders will resist watering themselves down for the benefits of pattern matching in venture capital.