My impression on Appification vs Hard Tech is the length of the development cycle.
The combination of a few trends (Predominately smart phones, social networks & data analytics) enabled a whole new wave of technical possibilities. It was relatively quick to monetize this via App development, so that was the first wave to take advantage. Hard Tech can take longer (though from Cruise's point of view, not always that much longer) so these companies are only coming to fruition now.
When I look at AlphaGo's success, I think we are a new dawn of amazing things from Hard Tech.
The combination of a few trends (Predominately smart phones, social networks & data analytics) enabled a whole new wave of technical possibilities. It was relatively quick to monetize this via App development, so that was the first wave to take advantage. Hard Tech can take longer (though from Cruise's point of view, not always that much longer) so these companies are only coming to fruition now.
When I look at AlphaGo's success, I think we are a new dawn of amazing things from Hard Tech.