Long horizon

Bet on the wristwatch1900s-1920s

When the industry sold pocket watches and dismissed wristwatches as fragile 'wristlets' worn by women, Wilsdorf committed to the wrist, helped along by seeing soldiers wear them in the field for hands-free timing.

• Ben:Whenever anyone tried to make a watch and put it on the wrist, at this point in history, it was usually fragile or really inaccurate or actually worn more as jewelry. They actually didn't call them wristwatches. They called them wristlets, and they were mostly worn by women.
  [Acquired Rolex, ch. Pocket watches to wrist]
  EpisodeRolexCite

The Drop: seed one side to start the network1958

Bank of America force-fed 65,000 unsolicited cards to Fresno residents in 1958. Chaos, fraud, and 22% delinquency followed — but it worked. The insight: only an entity large enough to absorb the fraud and delinquency could have bootstrapped the network from zero. You had to lose money to start.

• David:The story is so wild because this first chapter that we just told, there's only one entity in the world that could have done this, Bank of America.
  [Acquired Visa, ch. The Drop]
  EpisodeVisaCite

Own the standard before the market agrees it is the standard1985-present

Qualcomm invented and patented CDMA before the industry had agreed on a wireless standard. When CDMA was selected for 3G globally, Qualcomm's patents were mandatory for every carrier and device maker. The lesson: the most durable patent moat is on the standard, not on a product implementation — because every implementation must pay.