The Platform Delusion:Who Wins And Who Loses In The Age Of Tech Titans

Description

An investment banker and professor explains what really drives success in the tech economy

Many think that they understand the secrets to the success of the biggest tech companies: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. It's the platform economy, or network effects, or some other magical power that makes their ultimate world domination inevitable. Investment banker and professor Jonathan Knee argues that the truth is much more complicated--but entrepreneurs and investors can understand what makes the giants work, and learn the keys to lasting success in the digital economy.

Knee explains what really makes the biggest tech companies work: a surprisingly disparate portfolio of structural advantages buttressed by shrewd acquisitions, strong management, lax regulation, and often, encouraging the myth that they are invincible to discourage competitors. By offering fresh insights into the true sources of strength and very real vulnerabilities of these companies, The Platform Delusion shows how investors, existing businesses, and startups might value them, compete with them, and imitate them.

The Platform Delusion demystifies the success of the biggest digital companies in sectors from retail to media to software to hardware, offering readers what those companies don't want everyone else to know. Knee's insights are invaluable for entrepreneurs and investors in digital businesses seeking to understand what drives resilience and profitability for the long term.

About the Author

Jonathan A. Knee is a Professor of Professional Practice and Co-Director of the Media and Technology Program at Columbia Business School and also a Senior Advisor at Evercore Partners. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic. He writes the Book Entry column for the New York Times DealBook. Professor Knee is the author of The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade that Transformed Wall Street (Oxford: 2006), The Curse of The Mogul: What's Wrong With the World's Leading Media Companies? (Portfolio: 2009) (with Greenwald and Seave) and Class Clowns: How the Smartest Investors Lost Billions in Education (Columbia: 2016). His next book, The Platform Delusion: Who Wins and Who Loses in the Age of Tech Titans, will be released by Portfolio in September 2021.