What defines a platform

Today, I read a great definition of what creates a platform delivered by, no other than, the “great” BillG (emphasis all mine):

Neither of [Facebook platform and connect] are platforms. They’re both kind of like these comical endeavors that do you as an Nth priority. I was in charge of Facebook platform. We trumpeted it out like it was some hot shit big deal. And I remember when we raised money from Bill Gates, 3 or 4 months after… Like our funding history was $5M, $83 M, $500M, and then $15B. When that 15B happened around literally a few months after Facebook platform and Gates said something along the lines of, “That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.”

Via the very controversial Chamath Palihapitiya at StrictlyVC’s Insider Series.

New Products

The first precept of industrial design is that the function of an object should determine its design and materials.

Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing.