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Microsoft has a path to becoming the source of truth for customer data through Azure, which would make it mission-critical to all business software. If Microsoft convinces customers to store their customer data in an Azure warehouse (enriched by LinkedIn’s data) instead of a CRM, then the CRM becomes a simple window through which companies access customer data. Other business applications would then build on top of Azure, not Salesforce. If Microsoft divorces the CRM from the customer data system of record, it commoditizes its complement to beat Salesforce.

But modern teams don’t choose Microsoft, opting for the modern data stack of Fivetran + dbt + Snowflake. Is there a chance Microsoft can win them over?

But owning GitHub doesn’t immediately translate into young developers that love Azure. Microsoft’s task is to gracefully harness its newfound developer love. But you can’t force love, like Google tries to force Meet on its unsuspecting users. Microsoft needs deeper OSS support and developer tooling before pushing users towards Azure.In other words, Azure needs organic adoption to fully penetrate the enterprise.

Execution is critical, but riding an S curve is the path to win in tech.

Traditional wisdom tells us that founders are the only determinant of startup success. Great founders are necessary but not sufficient. Great product theses and fast-growing categories are increasingly the true bottleneck.

The classic consideration for VCs is whether incumbents can copy the startup’s technology before the startup copies the incumbents' distribution. For the past 20 years, the answer was almost always no – startups achieved escape velocity across categories, seemingly immune from incumbents’ distribution power.

Megaproject success can be hard to see when it happens within large companies. Azure and AWS are two of the most successful megaprojects of this century, but were hidden from the public for years, nested inside much larger corporations. Starlink, the global satellite internet network, is only possible given the scale of SpaceX’s core launch business, but could be one of the most successful megaprojects of our time.