Tweet by sarahtavel

August 22, 2025

In the Web 1.0 era, a question that followed most consumer internet companies was "What if Google does this?" Of course, in most areas the question was silly (bc: focus), but not in all areas. e.g., RIP Mapquest, Hotmail, etc. Now the question is "What if OpenAI does this?" The only truly valuable "vertical" area that won against Google was travel. It was enough of a considered purchase and specialized enough that it demanded a different UI (of course, eventually Google got into it, but it required a large acquisition). OpenAI *needs* to go after some areas because they can't control what questions people ask, and they must feel a responsibility to handle those questions well. Health is a great example of this. And OpenAI has a huge advantage both bc they control the underlying model, and from a distribution perspective -- people are already there asking the questions. If you're a founder going after the same type of prompts, that is really tough to compete against. Certainly a lot easier to do that in areas where you want a separate space / identity / experience, or where ChatGPT's interface underwhelms for the use case. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. In particular, Google struggled on new product execution and had to acquire companies that they could then superpower with its infrastructure and distribution. Will be interesting to see OpenAI flex their new products muscle over time....

Author
sarahtavel
Date
August 22, 2025
Open on X