Google, Facebook, Apple, and Uber are just some of the enormous companies that derive part of their value from network effects: The more users they have, the more value they provide. Network effects aren’t new. The basic principles that underpinned faxes and phone lines also underpin social media. But rapid technological change has made network effects more prevalent and more powerful than ever before.

Serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor James Currier is one of the world’s foremost experts on networks, and on the companies that use them best. He joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how companies with network effects dominate markets, and why their influence will likely continue to grow.

They also discuss:

• Why network-effects companies dominate global markets, and how they can recast the way we think about the world.
• Why networks can become harder to manage as they grow – and harder to do without.
• The problems globe-spanning networks can cause – especially when the motives of dominant corporate players don’t align with what’s best for our societies.
• How we should govern those networks in the coming decades.

@JamesCurrier
@azeem
@exponentialview

Further resources:

• NFX’s Network Effects Bible (NFX)
• “How to Regulate Facebook, with Nick Clegg” (Exponential View Podcast, 2021)
• “Messi joins crypto craze as gets part of PSG fee in fan tokens” (Reuters, 2021)