Another frame for last week's "tech island": an early proprietary advantage that catches you in a dead end where the rest of the world passes you by.

They're more likely to happen in immature environments, where a proprietary lead helps at the beginning but where most of the energy will come later, in the ecosystem, not you.

They're less likely to happen in very mature environments, where all of the good ideas have been found, and the environment is approaching heat-death.