The big story

How big technology systems are slowing innovation

February 2022

In 2005, years before Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa came on the scene, two startups—ScanSoft and Nuance Communications—merged to pursue a burgeoning opportunity in speech recognition. The new company developed powerful speech-processing software and grew rapidly for almost a decade. Then suddenly, around 2014, it stopped growing.

Nuance’s story is far from unique. In all major industries and technology domains, startups are facing unprecedented obstacles. They are growing much more slowly than comparable companies did in the past. And it will take not only strong antitrust enforcement to reverse the trend, but a fundamental loosening of restrictions like non-compete agreements and intellectual property rights. Read the full story. —James Bessen

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Move over hot girl summer—2023 is all about pasta salad summer.
+ If zombies are your thing, this oral history of 28 Days Later is fantastic.
+ Bowling with two hands may seem like a weird technique, but it made Jason Belmonte a champion.
+ We love you, Ali Wong!
+ All praise these hands-on (paws on?) animal dads.