Mike Olson emphasizes that data has become ubiquitous and is no longer dominated by a single company or individual. Instead, it's generated by machines in vast volumes and variety, making centralized databases obsolete. Google introduced the concept of cloud-based architectures, which have revolutionized how we think about data capture, storage, and analysis. Modern databases must also live in the cloud to accommodate this new reality. While some companies may compete in the Big Data space, it's unlikely that one company will dominate it due to the decentralized nature of data generation. A community effort is required to manage and solve Big Data problems, with companies like Cloudera and MongoDB working together to provide solutions for customers.