I really dislike these stories because virtually all these companies lose the script (no second act). It seems that companies that start with a larger vision have multiple acts. Microsoft with software going from programming tools to OS to office to cloud. Apple with computing going from computers to iPods, phones, and tablets. Google with organizing the worlds information and making it accessible. Perhaps it is survival bias or perhaps I am mistaken.
I'm not sure Microsoft had such a grand vision early on; they were late to the Internet after all. And their public cloud play came along later as well. Neither did Apple. And I'd say that Google went from organizing the world's information to mostly selling ads.
Except that they largely deprioritized things besides search because they couldn't monetize to the same degree. Google Reader, Scholar, Books (and yes I know there were legal issues), Deja News/Groups, etc. They continue to sort of support things like Blogger but they're clearly not a priority. To Google, the "world's information" is mostly restricted to information they can serve search ads against.
It's also a little silly because every serial founder basically could have pivoted had they desired. It's just normally suboptimal for various reasons. Easier to shut it down and start anew.
