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Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes Thread July 2015 - Less Wrong
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Assuming you are referring to IBM's mainframe business, they did not really have a monopoly; they were just a dominant player. Competitors at that time included Amdahl, Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, Control Data, Honeywell, General Electric and RCA. Amdahl even offered products that were compatible with IBM's mainframe offerings and could run software developed on/for IBM.
Given the context, I'm interpreting "monopoly" loosely and include being the dominant player in the definition.
Thiel talks about how you would want to parlay your technological (or first-mover) advantage into a monopoly and he clearly means companies like Microsoft or Google which are not legal monopolies like AT&T was.