Ep. 02 James Currier - Unveiling the math behind society and what to do about it

Mar 30, 2020

James Currier, a Silicon Valley growth expert and co-founder of NFX, discusses the critical evolution of marketplaces in our digital economy. He emphasizes the need for charismatic leaders and retraining efforts to navigate societal shifts. Currier explores how cultural differences influence innovation, contrasting the rapid pace in China with the West's incremental approach. He also highlights labor market inequalities exacerbated by digital transparency and cautions about the economic risks posed by the growing dominance of network effects.

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Intro

00:00 • 2min

Navigating the Future of Marketplaces

01:52 • 23min

Culture and Innovation: East vs. West

25:01 • 7min

Market Networks: Giants vs. Niche Players

32:08 • 7min

Power Laws and Labor Market Inequalities

38:41 • 15min

Exploring Economic Risks in a Network Effect-Driven World

53:31 • 4min

The Future of Platform Innovations and Corporate Transformation

57:24 • 4min

In this episode, we have a boundaryless conversation with James Currier one of Silicon Valley’s foremost experts in growth and network effects. James is a four-time CEO of VC backed companies and a pioneer of user-generated models, viral marketing, A/B testing, crowdsourcing, and myriad of other growth techniques that have since been adopted by nearly all technology companies. In 2015, James co-founded NFX, a $150M early-stage venture capital firm focused on network effect businesses along with Pete Flint and Gigi Levy Weiss. In this conversation, we explore the real and so far unseen boundaries of the transition towards an economy more heavily based on marketplaces and market-networks, and how this transformation both shapes and is shaped by the major shifts and challenges that are currently emerging in the global society, including environmental, social, political, regulatory. We talk about the need for strong and charismatic leaders to steward these shifts, as well as the need to re-train people to gain the right competencies to deal with an increasingly digital, networked economy and transforming industries.

Read more on our Medium story https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/

Here are some important links from the conversation:

> Ben Evans’ presentation “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” during the World Economic Forum in January 2020, https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations

> Simone Cicero: “Why the Next Paradigm Shift may not be Technological”, https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/paradigm-shift-regulation-af48b87a0eeb

> Ben Thompson, The End of the Beginning, https://stratechery.com/2020/the-end-of-the-beginning/

> Niall Ferguson (2017), The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35629744-the-square-and-the-tower

> Libra cryptocurrency, https://libra.org/en-US/

> Lambda school, https://lambdaschool.com/

> Incredible health, https://www.incrediblehealth.com/

> Hire.com, https://www.peoplefluent.com/

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast

Music by liosound.Recorded on March 18th 2020