A few years ago I wrote a post that I was quite proud of. It was entitled "Is Paul Krugman Click Worthy?" Here's an excerpt: The New York Times has just proposed to turn us all into Seinfeld‘s Elaine Benes. In episode 119 of the classic sitcom, Elaine’s preferred method of contraception is revealed to be the sponge. When the …
How did the Snowden revelations impact behaviour?
This week the Australian government announced what seems to be an extraordinary piece of legislation. Spies who leak sensitive information will face tough new penalties of up to 10 years' jail and internet firms could be forced to store customers' data for up to two years under sweeping national security reforms. Prompted in part by …
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Amazon's Kindle Unlimited: There may be a danger for authors
Thusfar, I think it is safe to say that publishers have had the most to worry about with regard to Amazon's monopsony power rather than authors; and what power there is comes at their own fault for relying continually on DRM restraints. Indeed, on many levels, one can see that Amazon has provided more opportunities …
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It's here: Netflix for Books or 'The Library'
Amazon just made official its Kindle Unlimited service that, for $9.99 per month, offers subscribers unlimited access to, at the moment, 600,000 books (including some big titles like Harry Potter). Basically, this is the Netflix model applied to reading and, from my perspective, it is interesting because I predicted it two years ago in Information …
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Do patents stifle cumulative innovation?
There has been a movement that began with the notion of the anti-commons that suggested that, whatever the other benefits and faults might be with the patent system, a fault that really matters for the operation of the system and for growth prospects (a la endogenous growth theory) is how patents might stifle cumulative or …
Should Wikipedia have robot helpers?
Wikipedia is famously open to anyone to edit. In practice, whether your edits sustain themselves depends upon other Wikipedia editors and the enforcement of various norms and rules that have emerged. The WSJ highlighted a new type of Wikipedia editor -- essentially a robot. Sverker Johansson could be the most prolific author you've never heard …
The Final Box: Architectural Strategy
It is now time to fill in the final box of our recent travel across the Entrepreneurial Strategy canvas. Recall that I argued that there were two key dimensions that could assist entrepreneurs in finding the right business model to match with their idea: (i) they could focus on execution or invest in control and …
Another choice: The Intellectual Property Strategy
Over the past two weeks, I have been outlining broad strategic options for entrepreneurs of which a disruption strategy is just one choice. The concept is that a given entrepreneurial idea can be commercialised in many different ways. The key to entrepreneurial strategy is to identify the feasible set of choices available to start-ups and …
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The Two Entrepreneurial Paths to Monopoly
It is always interesting when two famous entrepreneurs disagree on something fundamental. In this case, it is Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel. Here is Marc Andreessen's recent tweet. Something my friend & hero Peter Thiel and I vigorously disagree on: I *love* competition, I think it's invigorating/stimulating/productive. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) June 30, 2014 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsPut …
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Choosing not to disrupt (Embedding in a value chain)
This post is a continuing part of an on-going series on entrepreneurial strategy. The previous posts in the series involved disruptive strategy and are here and here. Recall that the notion of entrepreneurial strategy is based on the foundation that once you have an idea the business model that is matched to commercialise that idea …
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