Tech Giants

We are living in a strange era of technology. We have more computing power in our pockets than NASA allegedly used to allegedly put humans on the alleged moon, yet it feels like the pace of meaningful innovation has hit a wall. For years, I was the quintessential Apple loyalist. My life was a perfectly curated, ecosystem-locked garden. I had the Watch, the AirPods, the MacBook, the HomePod, the iPad, everything. I lived in Safari, I evangelized iMessage, and I accepted the limitations of the "walled garden" as the price of admission for a premium experience.

But at some point, the magic faded. It feels as though the "Think Different" mantra died with Steve Jobs. Under Tim Cook, Apple has mastered one thing above all else: turning the stock price into a religion. They are an absolute juggernaut of cash accumulation, but the daring, category-defining risks of the past have been replaced by iterative, incremental updates. I’m down to my very last Apple device, and frankly, I don’t see it staying in my life for much longer.

The landscape elsewhere isn't much prettier. Microsoft. Just two or three years ago, I would have bet everything on them being the most innovative force in the industry. The power suit of tools they were building, combined with their aggressive and successful push for cloud-native infrastructure, was exhilarating. And then came Copilot. A moment I thought would change everything. But since then? They seem to have lost the plot. By chasing every headline, they’ve managed to erode their reputation and, in many cases, degrade the very products that made them an indispensable pillar of the industry.

Then there is the tragedy of Adobe. For a long time, I was a power user, living in their heavy software suites. When they started integrating AI, I genuinely thought they were making the leaps necessary to define the next generation of creative tools. But innovation doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s anchored to business ethics. Their repeated lawsuits and aggressive, arguably predatory, business practices have been a masterclass in how to alienate a loyal user base. They are hemorrhaging influence, and while they could still turn it around with the right focus, they are being out-maneuvered and displaced by agile, freemium alternatives like Canva.

And no, this isn't a post about AI alone, but rather the innovative philosophies of the companies.

So, where do we look when the titans of the past lose their way?

I find myself leaning entirely into the Google ecosystem. I’ve become a unabashed fanboy, and for good reason: they are the only ones actually moving the needle in ways that feel foundational. From the hardware elegance of the Pixel family and the sheer ubiquity of Chrome and Chromium to the frontiers of Waymo and the absolute bedrock of quantum computing, Google is doing the heavy lifting of the future.

While Google, like others, is focused on dividends and defensive maneuvers, Google seems to be the only one still building the future. In a world where most tech companies are just trying to keep the lights on and the shareholders happy, it’s refreshing to see someone still obsessed with the tech itself.

Honestly, with the tech giants stuck in a cycle of stagnation and shareholder appeasement, I’m finding a lot more optimism in the academic world. My alma mater, Arizona State University, is the best example. They’ve been an absolute innovation dynasty for years now—they haven’t just talked about innovation; they’ve made it a core design principle.

But i could be biased.