The business world is a complicated place. Filled with different industries adopting new technologies, it's hard for most people to grasp exactly how this industry works. But if there's one thing people know, it's that this world is constantly evolving. One of the main factors that drives this evolution is opportunity.

Throughout history, there have been many major business opportunities. What often ends up happening, though, is established businesses miss out on these opportunities, leading to their demise and the rise of new companies. Take Nvidia for example. Just 10 years ago, Nvidia was just a small chip company, with Intel leading the chip industry. But now, Intel is in major trouble, and Nvidia has surpassed Apple as the richest company in the world. How did this happen? Well, Nvidia capitalized on an opportunity that no one else took advantage of. The AI industry. A long time ago, before AI began taking over our industry, Nvidia designed a chip called a graphics processing unit (GPU) that could output 3D visuals on a computer screen. Slowly, as 3D graphics on computers became more important, Nvidia began growing immensely and started expanding into other fields apart from video games. In 2006, they released a programming language called CUDA that make GPUs even more powerful than before. Now, GPUs were capable of doing many tasks besides graphics and could multitask better than central processing units (CPU). With the rise of AI and cloud computing, Nvidia's GPUs were great for machine-learning and crypto mining tasks, so they were able to push into general computing when AI began revolutionizing the industry. Now, before all this happened, Intel was already Silicon Valley's biggest chip company. However, they made a critical mistake: they did not invest in the development of AI chips soon enough, leading them to get surpassed by Nvidia. Nvidia's revolutionary growth and influence today just goes to show the importance of capitalizing on uprising technologies and adapting to change in the workforce.

This is just one major example of how opportunities can change the course of businesses. There are many other well-known examples, like IBM and Microsoft, as well as Yahoo and Google. For a long time, IBM was the world's leading computer company. They were known for producing everything themselves, from the chips to the operating systems. However, everything changed once IBM signed a deal with Microsoft to use their product on a license basis. When Bill Gates acquired Microsoft DOS (MS-DOS), instead of selling it, he licensed it to IBM. This allowed Microsoft to maintain control of the OS and thus license it to other hardware vendors. Microsoft aggressively marketed MS-DOS to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, helping the company grow into a major software vendor. They then launched Windows Graphical OS, which became the dominant operating system and established Microsoft's global influence that remains today. As you can see, Microsoft saw the opportunity to grow their operation system. Unlike IBM, who kept focusing on marketing their hardware, they realized the software was more important and thus were able to become dominant in this industry.

The Yahoo and Google story is quite similar. When the Internet became big, before Google dominated, Yahoo was the leading search engine. However, Yahoo made many critical strategic mistakes. They focused too much on trying to offer many different products and services without having a clear focus. This allowed Google to focus on search and advertising. They used targeted advertising to monetize search and  improved their algorithms, giving them the power to offer a better user experience. Additionally, Google invested in a mobile-first strategy, as they realized that phones were becoming huge. They gave them an advantage in mobile search traffic as mobile usage grew, allowing them to ultimately overtake Yahoo as the biggest search engine in the world. Just like Microsoft, Google saw a key market opportunity and acted on it before Yahoo even realized, allowing them to become as big as they are today.

All these examples go to show the importance of key business opportunities in society. Thus, we must realize the importance of understanding the uprising technologies and trends today. As we continue learning and adapting to the changes in our society, it's important we look for hidden gems and opportunities if we want to make a lasting impact. After all, who knows what could be the next big thing?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!