The First Rule of Platforms

Thoughts on first-mover advantage.

members-only post Apr 29, 2015 1-min read

Jeff Bezos understood the need to move quickly in 1995. The Internet was a land grab, and Bezos knew it. This is also known as first-mover advantage. His mantra: Get big fast. To be sure, it has served Amazon well.

Bezos was right.

It's nearly impossible to play catch-up in the Age of the Platform.

Contrast that with Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook was certainly not the first social network. (See MySpace, Friendster, and Classmates.com.) Zuck did not roll out Facebook to schools in 2005 willy-nilly. Rather, He patiently waited until his company's infrastructure could support more users. He cared about the user experience.

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Marketplaces Are Not Platforms The Long Term Has Never Been Shorter

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