I sort of agree with both of you. Yes, you can do it in a small shop, and my company does. A lot, actually. But I wouldn't say we exactly allocate time to innovation. It's more about taking a long view and integrating the long view mentality into projects with tight deadlines and immediate needs.

It takes a lot of work, and it feels quite different than the luxury of overt R&D and an emphasis on creating tools. We still mostly have to keep the development of tools to an as-needed basis and just take those opportunities to put an eye on the future. It's a delicate balance.

So to me the GP is not wrong when saying that these companies like Facebook have a serious luxury. That's the luxury to repeatedly experiment and fail with little relative consequence to the business. The rest of us can't afford to spend nearly as much time or make nearly as many mistakes.