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# Platforms Guarantee Nothing
- URL: https://www.philsimon.com/platforms-guarantee-nothing/
- Published: 2012-03-28T10:41:28.000Z
- Updated: 2025-12-30T03:12:19.000Z
- Description: On the impermanence the Gang of Four.
- Author: Phil Simon
- Tags: Platforms, Strategy, Google, The Age of the Platform

Can Google continue to not be evil? Has it, in fact, grown up?

These are just a few of the questions posted in [a recent *HBR* article](https://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/google%5Fand%5Fthis%5Ftime%5Fits%5Fgonna.html?ref=philsimon.com).

As I write in The Age of the Platform, the struggles and challenges faced by Google prove that it's no monopoly, especially in the long term. In 2012, David can be disrupted or disintermediated in much shorter periods of time than ever before. One misstep is all it takes—and sometimes it doesn't even need that much.

Nothing is guaranteed in the Age of the Platform. No company should be complacent, at least if it expects to survive.