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. Jonathan A. Knee is the author of The Accidental Investment Banker and The Curse of the Mogul. He has written dozens of op-eds, book reviews and magazine articles over the past three decades on a wide variety of topics touching on culture, business, law, economics and public policy in publications including The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Since 2014, he has served as the Book Entry columnist for the New York Times Dealbook. He is the Michael T. Fries Professor of Professional Practice in Media and Technology at Columbia Business School, where he also serves as co-Director of the Media and Technology Program. Mr. Knee has been an investment banker for over 25 years, at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Evercore Partners, where he remains a senior advisor.
