I am fascinated by rivals of industries or titans of their niches being competitive.
It seems like suitable rivals who play at the cutting edge of their respective fields push each other to new heights of greatness. Of course, its not all rosy and competition is fierce (which can lead to disaster for either or both sides) but if humans did not have this then I fear we would have missed a lot of ‘man’s’ greatest achievements.
Examples of titans spurring each other on can be seen in the technology industry with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to Peter Thiel and Elon Musk with PayPal or even Jeff Bezos and Barnes & Nobles. Other examples include Ferrari vs Lamborghini, Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison, Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer, and Adidas vs Puma.
This dynamic has even spilled into Hollywood.
As Niki Lauda tells James Hunt at the end of the movie Rush:
Stop thinking of it as a curse to have been given an enemy in life. It can be a blessing too. A wise man gets more from his enemies than a fool from his friends. (…) So don’t let me down man, I need you busting my balls. (…) When I heard he died aged 45 of a heart attack, I wasn’t surprised, I was just sad. People always think of us as rivals, but he was among the very few I liked, and even fewer that I respected. He remains the only person I envied.
Niki Lauda
Or a complete fictional story in the Batman Trilogy we hear:
I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you. Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, No… No! No! You, you, you complete me
Joker
The last example I will give is less of a rivalry and more of a relationship turned sour… namely between Steve Jobs and John Scully.
During the Steve Jobs movie they have a dialogue about why Steve killed the Newton where Steve finally reveals why he ended the product line. After revealing this they say:
Steve: “Things we could have done together…”
John: “God, the things we could have done.”
From this it is clear that great things could have been accomplished by sticking together and working through the problems, and they both knew it. However, large ego’s and thereby competitive spirits got in the way.
Contrary to where I started, and knowing that it is hard to prove, maybe if rivals of industries put their ego’s in check and worked closer together (where possible, e.g. hard in F1 or sports) one could have seen even bigger success stories.
Maybe that is just idealist utopian thinking on my part as the biggest rivals are within ourselves, against ourself.
The media and the spectacle they create always make it seem like a vicious fight where each party hates each other but then again there seems to be a seed of beauty and collaboration in these stories and encounters where (to a certain extent) both parties needed each other.
If you are interested in more stories like these I highly recommend the book ‘How Innovation works’ by Matt Ridley.