Hoffman and Yeh's “Blitzscaling” offers practical advice for startups but presents a lot of revisionist history and ignores the perils of VC-fueled hypergrowth
The pursuit of monopoly has led Silicon Valley astray. — Look no further than the race between Lyft and Uber to dominate the online ride-hailing market. Tweets: @ulaar , @joshelman , @schulte_stef , @swardley , @stevesi , @gaberivera , @metaviv , and @timoreilly Tweets: Vishy Kuruganti / @ulaar : Had O'Reilly followed Hoffman/Yeh's advice for GNN (pre-Yahoo web directory) and Website (pre-Netscape web server), it would have been a contest they'd have likely lost to that era's blitzscalers who also got disrupted eventually. Josh Elman / @joshelman : There is a ton packed into this great piece by @timoreilly . The one that jumps out to me most is the reminder that great platforms (and great companies) enable others to be successful http://qz.com/... @schulte_stef : “[In Silicon Valley,] investors, awash in cheap capital, anointed the winners rather than letting the market decide who should succeed [...]”, “[...] the market is largely closed off to new ideas except from within the existing, well-funded companies”: http://qz.com/... @swardley : “Survivorship bias masquerading as a strategy” ... I do enjoy Tim's writing. Excellent post -> http://twitter.com/... Steven Sinofsky / @stevesi : The fundamental problem with Silicon Valley's favorite growth strategy http://qz.com/... via @qz // I quibble with the title of the post “favorite” but this is worth reading. (I also thought the Microsoft comparison was revisionist). Gabe Rivera / @gaberivera : Here's a post by the guy second from the right that reviews a book written by the first guy to the left of the handsome guy in the center. (Incidentally, the handsome guy in the center is the author of one of 2018's most incredible murder mysteries.) http://twitter.com/... http://twitter.com/... Aviv Ovadya / @metaviv : This piece by @timoreilly is a fascinating exploration of valley incentives—and pairs well with the story of Gumroad by @shl. Key line: “Every month of less than 20% growth should have been a red flag” What does that do to a business? To a person? http://medium.com/... http://twitter.com/... Tim O'Reilly / @timoreilly : I've witten a critique of Silicon Valley's obsession with monopoly as a business model. It's a #longread but I hope you will stick with me to the end. And more importantly, if you are an entrepreneur or a VC, I hope you will make different choices! http://qz.com/...