What COVID-19 Reveals About Tech Monopolies

Photo by istocksdaily/iStock / Getty Images

Photo by istocksdaily/iStock / Getty Images

The recent congressional interest in tech monopolies made a wrong assumption about data.

Lucrative monopolies are supposedly inevitable in lines of business that depend on data because companies become more effective as they accumulate more of the stuff. The common belief is that whoever has the most data wins. And it’s not just excitable members of Congress. To get the attention of investors, tech entrepreneurs learn early they must promise to pursue winner-takes-all strategies. Except it’s just not true that effective data strategies are always, or even usually, winner-takes-all. In fact, most are not.

In this article by David Apgar / Santa Cruz County Bank, he postulates:

  • Relevance is more important than quantity

  • Peter Thiel’s statement that “competition is for losers” is wrong.

  • How LinkedIn and Netflix embraced competition, and their data strategies

  • Strategies based on data relevance that embrace competition thus always have the potential to challenge winner-takes-all strategies

  • What COVID-19 has taught us about the value of data

Read the entire article by clicking on the link below.