In 1992, Apple’s founder and CEO Steve Jobs talks to MIT students about competitive advantage:

“Hardware churns every 18 months. It’s pretty impossible to get a sustainable competitive advantage from hardware. If you’re lucky, you can make something one and a half or two times as good as your competitor. And it only lasts for six months.”

“But software seems to take a lot longer for people to catch up with.”

“I watched Microsoft take eight or nine years to catch up with the Mac, and it’s arguable whether they’ve even caught up.”

On technology windows:

“You can use the concept of technology windows opening and then eventually closing.”

“Enough technology from fairly diverse places comes together and makes something that’s a quantum leap forward possible. And a window opens up.”

“It usually takes around five years to create a commercial product that takes advantage of that technical window opening up.”

“And then it seems to take about another five years to really exploit it in the marketplace.”

He gave examples from his own life:

Apple II lasted 15 years. DOS lasted 15 years. Mac was eight years old at the time and would easily last another five.

“These things are hard. They don’t last because it’s convenient, or even because it’s economic. They last because this is hard stuff to do.”