When I was in graduate school, I developed some case studies for Professor Ram Charan. One of them was on the AMPEX company. You may not have heard of AMPEX because it has literally disappeared from the business scene, but back then it was THE dominant player in recording tape and tape players. Dominant. Profitable. And, now, out of sight.
What happened? Sony and others took AMPEX products and made them better. So, while AMPEX was the first mover and early innovator of tape technology it didn't hold on to its advantage. That's true in many other cases. Atari pretty much invented video games, but Nintendo and Sony kept improving them. Xerox invented the mouse, but Steve Jobs saw its potential.
The lesson is that innovation is critical, but to remain successful you have to stay hungry. You have to compete with yourself. You need the restless spirit that asks "how can this be better?" over and over again.
As the saying goes ... today's laurels are tomorrow's compost.
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