Some additional thoughts:
Maybe Thiel is right with his thesis. But I think we don't see the impacts of the latest "technology" like Facebook and Twitter or any social network that might come as a successor clearly yet. I had the same opinions, because it doesn't really feal like rocket science or flying cars. A German professor called Peter Kruse, changed my mind. He has a really interesting perspective on todays interconectedness using a system theroetical view:
His thesis is (roughly):
What we are currently doing is rapidly increasing the interconnectedness or the networking density of our society almost worldwide (e.g. social networks Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you name it) and the devices we use (e.g. IoT), we have also increased spontaneous activities in these networks (e.g. web 2.0 services where people can be interactive), additionally we have implemented functions that enable circular stimulus in these networks (retweet and share functions). If these 3 effects come together there is the tendency that these systems will carry signals that resonate and amplify themselfs. It is almost impossible to forecast when and how this happens, because these networks are non-linear. If you post something that resonates with a lot of people you can be very powerful from one moment to another. Technology is only the enabler here and I have no doubt that this has a huge impact on society - see the revolution in Egypt for example. One outcome is a shift of power, because it is really hard to control these networks. Even though we have very sophisticated mass-surveilance most events happen very uncontrolled.
Interesting idea to use the framework of S curves on this observation. But I think that the typical S curve model will not work on big innovations that are not disruptive towards or at least strongly related to each other in terms of use cases. What you mean is rather the concept of "Kondratiev Waves" [1]
Yes this might be a dumb way of deciding where to work, especially because you might be able to negotiate your salary based on the competitive offers you might get.
Ask yourself:
- with which of the companies (mission and strategy, as well as customers) can you identify yourself best?
- where do you see yourself having a more pleasent work environment in regards to the people you would be working with and the working culture/environment?
- what are your future career targets and which opportunity might increase the probability to reach them? what is the potential for the role?
- what might be the goals, and can you identify with them as well as add value, of your direct reports?
I still wonder about the role of CloudCar in regards to Google and to Android. At least the Startup is somehow connected to Andy Rubin [1], the original founder of Android. CloudCar also has some good engineers that know the automotive infotainment space quite well.
"The startup may not be Rubin’s next place of employment, but he is connected to it: after the rumor hit, and then he denied it on Twitter, he further clarified in a Google+ post that CloudCar “are a group of friends who I give free office space to in my incubator in Los Altos.”" [1]
CloudCar is part of the WebTV mafia. Bruce Lee and Andy Rubin both worked on WebTV and this is the connection. There are a very large number of WebTV alumni working in the Android team at Google as well.
There are a number of WebTV folks at Nest Labs and this is another connection to Google (no matter how much the Nest Labs folks claim then aren't part of Google).
Same for Volkswagen which owns amongst others: Audi, Bentley, Skoda and of course Volkswagen itself. But these "brands" at least partially have their own development departments. Audi for example operates quite independent in many regards.
