Rocket ships and tractors

It's hard to get around that, but the way you can do it is if you build in utility. And I think that is largely because advertising was a hell of a drug for these companies for so long. That is why all these big internet advertising platforms were slow to become marketplaces, because it would have a temporary negative financial impact. Th... See more

Companies with poor unit economics found themselves propelled by aggressive venture dollars (which themselves were propelled by a low-interest-rate environment). Those companies then turned those dollars into aggressive customer acquisition. Until recently, the market rewarded growth at all costs.

Silicon Valley famously underestimated commerce as a business model. I don't think I would have a career if Silicon Valley had understood sooner just how good transactions are as a business model and how important they are.

But at a more general level, whether the shift from enterprise to SaaS or the shift from listings to marketplaces to vertically integrated services. Our business models change as a function of the structure of their markets.