[Music]
the reason why I’m standing here today
is because two years ago I walked up to
my father and told him that I wanted to
do an internship and a startup company
here in Berlin and this startup company
happened to be a platform company so my
father looked at me and said Paul don’t
you want to work for a company that
actually produces something and at that
point I didn’t I didn’t have a good
answer to tell him – how platform
companies also produce things and also
create value and that is what I’ve been
doing during my research finding an
answer to that question and to start off
this talk today I want to show some
differences between traditional
companies and startup companies at these
platforms that have companies and for
that I brought this little box here to
show the differences and let’s imagine
that this box here is the traditional
company let’s imagine that this box here
is an automotive manufacturer like let’s
say BMW so inside of this box there are
resources and capabilities that their
company employs to produce in the end
the beautiful BMW cars and these
resources like people machines
components they all used to create then
in the end value for a platform company
however it’s a little different because
for a platform company some of the value
creation is actually taking place
outside of the company so they are
externalizing some of the value creation
that the platform’s ecosystem so what
does it exactly mean to take resources
from outside of the company and create
value then to
consumers let’s take an example to show
what that actually means let’s take the
example of uber uber is a mobility
platform service that is disrupting the
taxi industry right now in the United
States because it’s forbidden here in
Germany but the platform company uber as
I just said is taking outside resources
to create value for their customers so
if we take uber as this company again as
this box they are taking cars which are
actually not inside of this box but
outside and they don’t own these cars
and take drivers which they actually
don’t really employ but create value for
their customers and that is through
facilitating the interaction between
them – so if we take this box now it
seems pretty empty now and pretty asset
light so what’s left in this box in this
box there are left these interactions
and these interactions are really at the
core of every platform company so if you
want to start a platform company focus
on the interactions so at this point in
my talk I also want ask the question to
you as the audience I want to ask you do
you think that the traditional car
manufacturer BMW creates the same amount
of value as uber or does it create more
value than over what is the variation of
the two companies at the market who’s
who here in the audience things that
they create the same amount of value and
that are valued the same please put up
your hands the market capitalization I
can’t see very many hands and that’s
actually something that I expected to
because that’s what my father said to
these platform companies don’t create
any values so how can a company that
doesn’t create any value
P of hi evaluated in a market then the
traditional car manufacturer but in fact
oh I already have to slide up as you can
see on the slide
uber in fact has a higher market value
than BMW so what sort of value are they
actually creating and how do they do it
well let’s go back to the interactions
that are taking place and let’s talk a
little bit about these interactions
because these interactions as I said at
the core of every platform business so
what the platform needs to do is to make
as many interactions as possible and
increase the quantity and the quality of
the interactions so the platform can
increase the quantity and the quality of
the interactions in many different ways
one of the ways that and one other
example that I want to give you to show
how they add value to the value that is
created outside of the company out of
the platform is the platform company
Instagram most of you guys will probably
know Instagram
and Instagram introduced a couple of
tools for the interactions to be
increased and be improved these tools
that they introduced were one they
introduced filters so they introduced
filters for the producers on the one
side to produce better content to
produce better pictures to increase the
quality of the pictures that producers
were post on Instagram another thing
that they did was they introduced a
thing called Instagram stories or rather
they copied it from snapchat but they
introduced stories because it reduced
the steps it took was for producers to
take a picture and upload it on
Instagram to a single step from the four
steps before and by reducing the number
of steps it increased then the quantity
of the interactions that could take
place on the
platform on the other side you have the
consumers and Instagram also gave some
tools to the consumers to in the end
increase the interactions by introducing
things called hashtags I think you’ve
heard of them and they make it easier
for the consumers
to find the pictures that they are
looking for and because these hashtags
are describing things that you see on
the pictures a second way in which
platforms can increase the quantity and
the qualities of the interactions is by
learning from each and every
interactions that has taken place on the
platform another example I want to give
you to explain that is Spotify I’m a big
fan of Spotify have to admit and Spotify
is also learning from every interactions
that is taking place on its platform it
is learning from the songs that people
listen to and is learning from the songs
that I listen to too and it’s able to
show me more songs that I might like to
and there’s this feature called
discovery and I can just press discovery
and we’ll keep on suggesting songs to me
that I like another example of which of
where platform learns from the
interaction is Google who here in the
room wouldn’t agree that Google is
actually creating value I mean we
wouldn’t be able to search things from
the whole world wide web without Google
but Google is only able to show you what
we are looking for on from the web
because it’s learning from the
interactions that are taking place on
its platform but every click that you’re
making on Google you’re giving a
feedback to Google telling it what the
right search result is for the search
request that you did and not only your
own click is improving the interactions
but every interaction from the whole
network from the whole platform is
increasing the value of the whole
platform and
of the whole network another example
where a platform learns is Facebook I
bet everyone here in the room has a very
customized news feed and the news feed
is also an example where the platform
learns it is with every click and every
like and every post that you’re doing on
Facebook it is learning about your taste
and it’s learning what you want to see
on the newsfeed and by learning what you
want to see on the newsfeed it is also
increasing the desire to use Facebook
even more so some people might even say
that people are becoming addicted to
Facebook these days but I want to go
back the slide I think that just came up
here there are more examples of where
these disruptive new companies platform
companies are challenging then the old
traditional companies from the industry
the second example here is the aviary MP
company Airbnb in fact has also a high
evaluation then its traditional
competitor the Marriott hotel group did
you know how the story of every MP
started let me tell you there were two
graduate students who just finished
University and moved to San Francisco
and they moved into an apartment that
could they could barely afford so what
they do they took out an air mattress
and put it up in the living room and
turned the living room into a
bed-and-breakfast and offered this room
to travelers coming to San Francisco and
they’re very they created value from
something that they already owned
they just made this value accessible to
the market I bet many people here in the
audience have been guests and have
booked rooms over a vmb but maybe you’ve
also been a host maybe you have rented
out your guest room or your apartment to
someone else and that is in fact
something very remarkable about platform
companies as well it is the ability to
convert consumers also introduced
and it’s in the best interest and it’s
in the best interest of making as many
consumers and to producers because it’s
much cheaper for Airbnb because you are
already on the platform to then just
convert you into a producer – in fact
five days ago I got a notification from
Facebook telling me that I haven’t
posted anything for the last 15 days
shame on me but in the same way Facebook
told me that I was only a passive
consumer of the news feeder of the
Facebook and they wanted to convert me
back again into producing something and
they wanted to increase the number of
interactions that are taking place on
Facebook so these two prior distinct
sides of a platform are now becoming to
overlap and examples like Airbnb and
Facebook are just two examples of that
the last point I want to make to show
how these platforms create value is that
they that they are aggregating
fragmented markets and that’s probably
something that you might have heard
before there’s another story I can tell
you about that because when you were
traveling in the past let’s say you were
traveling to Munich you would have to
look up the local text and he wanted to
taxi you would have to look up the local
number of the local taxi company to call
the taxi and then if you wanted if you
went to another city you would have to
do the same again but my taxi in fact
just aggregated and put them all onto
one platform and was able to make it
more efficient and easier and the user
experience much easier much better
to book your taxi I want to end my talk
by encouraging people that fear the
power of platforms and that think that
platform businesses are creating
destroying businesses to be more
optimistic to look more optimistic into
the future and think of their own ways
of how they can employ these new
technologies and these new business
models to create value and the shift
towards these new technologies has long
happened towards the internet and mobile
internet so you have to think of ways to
employ these technologies and I want to
encourage for everybody here to release
more uncaptured value from their
ecosystem and shape the future of
decentralized production thank you very
much
[Applause]
the reason why I’m standing here today
is because two years ago I walked up to
my father and told him that I wanted to
do an internship and a startup company
here in Berlin and this startup company
happened to be a platform company so my
father looked at me and said Paul don’t
you want to work for a company that
actually produces something and at that
point I didn’t I didn’t have a good
answer to tell him – how platform
companies also produce things and also
create value and that is what I’ve been
doing during my research finding an
answer to that question and to start off
this talk today I want to show some
differences between traditional
companies and startup companies at these
platforms that have companies and for
that I brought this little box here to
show the differences and let’s imagine
that this box here is the traditional
company let’s imagine that this box here
is an automotive manufacturer like let’s
say BMW so inside of this box there are
resources and capabilities that their
company employs to produce in the end
the beautiful BMW cars and these
resources like people machines
components they all used to create then
in the end value for a platform company
however it’s a little different because
for a platform company some of the value
creation is actually taking place
outside of the company so they are
externalizing some of the value creation
that the platform’s ecosystem so what
does it exactly mean to take resources
from outside of the company and create
value then to
consumers let’s take an example to show
what that actually means let’s take the
example of uber uber is a mobility
platform service that is disrupting the
taxi industry right now in the United
States because it’s forbidden here in
Germany but the platform company uber as
I just said is taking outside resources
to create value for their customers so
if we take uber as this company again as
this box they are taking cars which are
actually not inside of this box but
outside and they don’t own these cars
and take drivers which they actually
don’t really employ but create value for
their customers and that is through
facilitating the interaction between
them – so if we take this box now it
seems pretty empty now and pretty asset
light so what’s left in this box in this
box there are left these interactions
and these interactions are really at the
core of every platform company so if you
want to start a platform company focus
on the interactions so at this point in
my talk I also want ask the question to
you as the audience I want to ask you do
you think that the traditional car
manufacturer BMW creates the same amount
of value as uber or does it create more
value than over what is the variation of
the two companies at the market who’s
who here in the audience things that
they create the same amount of value and
that are valued the same please put up
your hands the market capitalization I
can’t see very many hands and that’s
actually something that I expected to
because that’s what my father said to
these platform companies don’t create
any values so how can a company that
doesn’t create any value
P of hi evaluated in a market then the
traditional car manufacturer but in fact
oh I already have to slide up as you can
see on the slide
uber in fact has a higher market value
than BMW so what sort of value are they
actually creating and how do they do it
well let’s go back to the interactions
that are taking place and let’s talk a
little bit about these interactions
because these interactions as I said at
the core of every platform business so
what the platform needs to do is to make
as many interactions as possible and
increase the quantity and the quality of
the interactions so the platform can
increase the quantity and the quality of
the interactions in many different ways
one of the ways that and one other
example that I want to give you to show
how they add value to the value that is
created outside of the company out of
the platform is the platform company
Instagram most of you guys will probably
know Instagram
and Instagram introduced a couple of
tools for the interactions to be
increased and be improved these tools
that they introduced were one they
introduced filters so they introduced
filters for the producers on the one
side to produce better content to
produce better pictures to increase the
quality of the pictures that producers
were post on Instagram another thing
that they did was they introduced a
thing called Instagram stories or rather
they copied it from snapchat but they
introduced stories because it reduced
the steps it took was for producers to
take a picture and upload it on
Instagram to a single step from the four
steps before and by reducing the number
of steps it increased then the quantity
of the interactions that could take
place on the
platform on the other side you have the
consumers and Instagram also gave some
tools to the consumers to in the end
increase the interactions by introducing
things called hashtags I think you’ve
heard of them and they make it easier
for the consumers
to find the pictures that they are
looking for and because these hashtags
are describing things that you see on
the pictures a second way in which
platforms can increase the quantity and
the qualities of the interactions is by
learning from each and every
interactions that has taken place on the
platform another example I want to give
you to explain that is Spotify I’m a big
fan of Spotify have to admit and Spotify
is also learning from every interactions
that is taking place on its platform it
is learning from the songs that people
listen to and is learning from the songs
that I listen to too and it’s able to
show me more songs that I might like to
and there’s this feature called
discovery and I can just press discovery
and we’ll keep on suggesting songs to me
that I like another example of which of
where platform learns from the
interaction is Google who here in the
room wouldn’t agree that Google is
actually creating value I mean we
wouldn’t be able to search things from
the whole world wide web without Google
but Google is only able to show you what
we are looking for on from the web
because it’s learning from the
interactions that are taking place on
its platform but every click that you’re
making on Google you’re giving a
feedback to Google telling it what the
right search result is for the search
request that you did and not only your
own click is improving the interactions
but every interaction from the whole
network from the whole platform is
increasing the value of the whole
platform and
of the whole network another example
where a platform learns is Facebook I
bet everyone here in the room has a very
customized news feed and the news feed
is also an example where the platform
learns it is with every click and every
like and every post that you’re doing on
Facebook it is learning about your taste
and it’s learning what you want to see
on the newsfeed and by learning what you
want to see on the newsfeed it is also
increasing the desire to use Facebook
even more so some people might even say
that people are becoming addicted to
Facebook these days but I want to go
back the slide I think that just came up
here there are more examples of where
these disruptive new companies platform
companies are challenging then the old
traditional companies from the industry
the second example here is the aviary MP
company Airbnb in fact has also a high
evaluation then its traditional
competitor the Marriott hotel group did
you know how the story of every MP
started let me tell you there were two
graduate students who just finished
University and moved to San Francisco
and they moved into an apartment that
could they could barely afford so what
they do they took out an air mattress
and put it up in the living room and
turned the living room into a
bed-and-breakfast and offered this room
to travelers coming to San Francisco and
they’re very they created value from
something that they already owned
they just made this value accessible to
the market I bet many people here in the
audience have been guests and have
booked rooms over a vmb but maybe you’ve
also been a host maybe you have rented
out your guest room or your apartment to
someone else and that is in fact
something very remarkable about platform
companies as well it is the ability to
convert consumers also introduced
and it’s in the best interest and it’s
in the best interest of making as many
consumers and to producers because it’s
much cheaper for Airbnb because you are
already on the platform to then just
convert you into a producer – in fact
five days ago I got a notification from
Facebook telling me that I haven’t
posted anything for the last 15 days
shame on me but in the same way Facebook
told me that I was only a passive
consumer of the news feeder of the
Facebook and they wanted to convert me
back again into producing something and
they wanted to increase the number of
interactions that are taking place on
Facebook so these two prior distinct
sides of a platform are now becoming to
overlap and examples like Airbnb and
Facebook are just two examples of that
the last point I want to make to show
how these platforms create value is that
they that they are aggregating
fragmented markets and that’s probably
something that you might have heard
before there’s another story I can tell
you about that because when you were
traveling in the past let’s say you were
traveling to Munich you would have to
look up the local text and he wanted to
taxi you would have to look up the local
number of the local taxi company to call
the taxi and then if you wanted if you
went to another city you would have to
do the same again but my taxi in fact
just aggregated and put them all onto
one platform and was able to make it
more efficient and easier and the user
experience much easier much better
to book your taxi I want to end my talk
by encouraging people that fear the
power of platforms and that think that
platform businesses are creating
destroying businesses to be more
optimistic to look more optimistic into
the future and think of their own ways
of how they can employ these new
technologies and these new business
models to create value and the shift
towards these new technologies has long
happened towards the internet and mobile
internet so you have to think of ways to
employ these technologies and I want to
encourage for everybody here to release
more uncaptured value from their
ecosystem and shape the future of
decentralized production thank you very
much
[Applause]
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