The Platform Delusion: Who Wins and Who: Who Wins and Who Loses in the Age of Tech Titans Hardcover – 7 September 2021

For those who are interested in startups and are having fears of established players entering the same idea, this book gives clear insights on what and what not to do to be successful

The book challenges commonly accepted and touted “truths” regarding network effects, Scale benefits to AI and learning, and the resulting beliefs that first and fast movers win everything. It draws attention to traditional ingredients of the moat - large fixed costs, entry barriers (cost disadvantage, regulatory, IP), customer lock in (switching and search costs, narrow problems solved superbly, brand reinforcing great experience, complexity of options and hence the importance of trust). Knee acknowledges network effects but exhorts us not to worship them, and remember that even as historic moats are being leaped over, new ones are possible. All said and done, interesting. Only problem is that the complex economic theory, and the dense language used to explain it make it hard to wade through. But worth wading through it is

Detailed and often counter-intuitive. Useful to understand how to look at new age tech enabled cos, esp wrt competitive advantages . I enjoyed reading this book.

The author provides good insights on the uniqueness of the business models of major digital companies. But I found the writing style to be very dense with long convoluted sentences not at all easy to follow. As a result it was not a very enjoyable experience and honestly gave up mid way.

As soon as I started reading this, 2 things became clear1. The authors writing and his statement construction were difficult to follow.. he has a way of constructing complex sentences which I did not enjoy reading2. This entire topic could have been just a 1 page blog.. there was no need to write a book on this.. lot of repetition and useless things in the bookI got through only till Chapter 2 or 3 before I decided to not waste more time on this book and move on to some other more useful bookMy recommendation - it is overhyped and not value for money