Subscribe to receive email updates about my writing

Powered by Buttondown

I write about how we design, build, and make decisions in the physical world — a field where success depends on navigating risk, timing, and tradeoffs.

This is what Slack — and Silicon Valley, generally — failed to understand about Microsoft’s competitive advantage: the company doesn’t win just because it bundles, or because it has a superior ground game. By virtue of doing everything, even if mediocrely, the company is providing a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, particularly for the non-tech workers that are in fact most of the market. Slack may have infused its chat client with love, but chatting is a means to an end, and Microsoft often seems like the only enterprise company that understands that.

https://stratechery.com/2020/the-slack-social-network/

Platform case study