Why Incumbents Struggle with Architectural Lock-in

Rethinking Strategy and Competition: Why AI's Systemic Impact Demands Reinventing the Game and Setting the New Rules.

Guest: Sangeet Paul Choudary

Bio: Sangeet Paul Choudary is best known as one of the co-authors of the milestone book Platform Revolution, which explores how networked markets transform the economy. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Sangeet has advised leadership teams at over 40 Fortune 500 companies—including firms like Daimler and Nestlé—as well as pre-IPO technology companies. He is a recognized expert on platform economics and network effects and has been a keynote speaker at major global forums such as the G20 Summit, the World50 Summit, and the World Economic Forum. His widely acclaimed Harvard Business Review article, "Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy," was named one of the top 10 management ideas of 2017 and has been featured in multiple HBR must-read anthologies.

Summary: In this episode, Sangeet discusses the systemic impact of AI on the knowledge economy, presenting his latest book, Reshuffle. He argues that true competitive advantage in an era of technological shift comes not from executing the old game better, but from reinventing the game and setting the rules for others. The conversation moves beyond the typical focus on automation and tasks, examining how technology collapses fundamental constraints (such as the cost of editing in the case of typists) and shifts power structures. Sangeet also redefines platforms as the most scalable mechanism to coordinate complementary activities and investments within an ecosystem, and explains why AI represents a unique shift by acting as a non-commoditized, programmable input that moves power closer to the beginning of the value chain.

**Key Discussion Points **- The New Rules of Strategy: Winners in technological shifts differentiate themselves by setting the rules for others and reinventing the game, rather than simply executing the old game better

• AI's Systemic Impact: The core message of Reshuffle is that AI's impact is systemic, not merely affecting tasks or jobs. This is illustrated using historical, non-intelligent examples, such as the shipping container, which transformed the world by standardizing interfaces and collapsing the constraint of managing unreliability, leading to unbundling and globalization
• Jobs and Constraints: Jobs are fundamentally structured around managing a constraint in the system, not around performing a task. When AI collapses that constraint (e.g., editing costs for typists), the job's underlying value disappears, emphasizing the need to focus on the new system rather than fighting AI task-by-task

Publications

• Choudary, S. P. (2025). Reshuffle: Who wins when AI restacks the knowledge economy. Platform Thinking Labs.

Links

• https://platforms.substack.com/