Palm-Pilot – During my MBA program, I landed a summer internship at Palm Computing. They were competing with Apple to launch the first successful PDA. Apple was the Goliath in the market, and Palm was all of 23 employees at the time. Who was going to win this war – Palm, a barely-funded start-up, or Apple, which had tens of millions to invest? After graduating, I accepted a job at Apple. When PDA sales struggled, Apple let the Newton die, while Palm kept fighting, and grew to become the dominant market leader within a few years. Lesson learned: always bet on the David who’s survival is at stake, than the Goliath who barely notices if their ancillary initiative doesn’t succeed.