Semiconductors, platforms and the shifts that reorder an industry.
Name the two sides, say which one pays and why, and describe exactly how one side's growth helps the other.
Marketplace and platform pitches, product strategy questions, and the marketplace model.
From Platform Revolution · Geoffrey Parker, Marshall Van Alstyne and Sangeet Paul Choudary
Ask how a business escapes competition before asking how large its market is.
Venture and growth interviews, any moat discussion, and any pitch that leads with market size.
From Zero to One · Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
A platform that lets others earn on it grows faster than one that captures every dollar; the forgone revenue is the investment.
Platform strategy, take-rate questions, and any marketplace where the company could raise its share of the transaction.
From Shopify's 2015 IPO letter from Tobi Lütke · Tobi Lütke
A compute vendor's case is a flywheel from agents to tokens to compute; the buyer's case is the return on that compute, and both have to be read together.
Semiconductor and data-centre coverage, technology investing, and any debate about AI capital spending.
From NVIDIA's fiscal 2026 letter from Jensen Huang · Jensen Huang
Judge a network by whether its first small market is dense and self-sustaining, not by the size of the market it aims at.
Early-stage diligence, growth strategy questions, and any marketplace that reports total users rather than density.
From The Cold Start Problem · Andrew Chen
Find the narrowest step in a supply chain; that is where the risk, the pricing power and the politics all sit.
Technology coverage, macro and geopolitical questions, and any discussion of moats in hardware.
From Chip War · Chris Miller
In any industry, ask who holds the data the models need; the shift favours them more than the vendors of the models.
Bank and fintech coverage, the question of who wins from AI in finance, and any moat built on data.
From Capital One's 2024 letter from Rich Fairbank · Rich Fairbank
Growth is arriving faster and concentrating harder, so a company's trajectory in its first year tells you more than it used to.
Venture and growth diligence, cohort analysis, and any question about base rates for new companies.
From Stripe's 2025 annual letter · Patrick Collison and John Collison