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Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy

Marshall Van Alstyne, Geoffrey Parker, Sangeet Paul Choudary · Harvard Business Review Freemium Advanced

This is the strategic backbone: how platform businesses take power from traditional pipeline businesses by orchestrating a community and owning the interactions. Understanding the model tells you why the platform behaves the way it does, and where a dependent business can still create value. Denser and more academic, but foundational.

• Platforms win by controlling interactions, not resources.
• The community, not your product, is the platform's real asset.
• Know the model you are a supplier inside of.