Silicon Valley Strategy

Twenty companies, seventy years, one through-line. The seven strategic patterns that appear across every case study, the five decisions that determined outcomes, and what it all means for building companies today. Want to explore the strategic frameworks from all 20 companies? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

OpenAI launches ChatGPT and reaches 100 million users in two months. A forensic analysis of the AGI race, the capped-profit structure, the Altman firing, and what AI safety as a business model actually means. Want to learn more about the governance-growth paradox in AI companies? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Jensen Huang bets the company on CUDA in 2006 when no one cared. Nearly two decades later, NVIDIA owns the infrastructure layer of the AI era. The longest long bet in tech history. Want to learn more about how developer ecosystems create hardware moats? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

A rigorous look at crypto and Web3 through the Gartner Hype Cycle. What's real, what's speculative, and how to think about decentralized systems strategically. Want to learn more about decentralized governance and blockchain as trust architecture? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

The iPhone kills the incumbent internet. Twitter, Snap, and the companies that thrived by understanding what mobile made possible that desktop never could. Want to learn more about platform disruption and how the smartphone rewrote every competitive advantage? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Airbnb and Uber crack the two-sided marketplace problem simultaneously. Network effects, liquidity, regulatory arbitrage, and why winner-take-all isn't guaranteed. Want to learn more about two-sided platform economics and trust architecture? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

From Kleiner Perkins to Sequoia to a16z — how venture capital became the operating system of Silicon Valley and why the power law changes everything. Want to learn more about power-law investing and how VC shapes company strategy? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Facebook acquires Instagram for $1B and WhatsApp for $19B. Were they genius or paranoid? The acquisition playbook and what it means for competitive moats. Want to learn more about preemptive acquisition strategy and platform governance? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Zuckerberg builds a social network at Harvard and discovers something profound about human psychology. The growth hacks, the social graph, and why Facebook won. Want to learn more about social graph theory and real-identity network effects? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Amazon builds internal infrastructure so good it becomes a product. How AWS grew from an internal platform into a $90B+ business hiding inside a retailer. Want to learn more about cross-subsidization and how internal platforms become external businesses? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Bezos drives across the country to build a bookstore, then ignores profitability for a decade. The flywheel, the long game, and why Wall Street kept funding it. Want to learn more about the Amazon flywheel model and patient capital theory? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Google acquires Android for $50M, gives it away free, and reshapes mobile. Also: why Google+ failed and what it reveals about culture, incentives, and institutional limits. Want to learn more about open-source platform strategy and why engineering culture fails at social? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Page and Brin build a better search engine, then stumble into the most scalable business model in history. How AdWords created a money machine no one planned. Want to learn more about auction-based mechanism design and ad economics? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

A forensic analysis of the dot-com bubble — what caused it, who survived, and the strategic lessons that separate Amazon from Pets.com. Want to learn more about how to distinguish transformative technology from speculative mania? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Jobs returns, launches the iPod, and quietly builds the most profitable ecosystem in history. How Apple turned hardware into a platform and services into a moat. Want to learn more about ecosystem flywheels and the 30% take rate model? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Dell reinvents the PC business by eliminating the middleman and building to order. How a college student's mail-order experiment became a supply chain revolution. Want to learn more about how business model innovation beats product innovation? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Gates agrees to supply IBM an operating system before he owns one, acquires QDOS for $75K, then leverages the standard to dominate every layer of the stack. The definitive case study in platform control. Want to learn more about licensing strategy and platform lock-in? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Jobs and Wozniak build a computer for humans, not engineers. How Apple invented the personal computing category and the design philosophy that still governs the industry. Want to learn more about the closed vs. open architecture debate? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Noyce and Moore leave Fairchild to build Intel — then bet the entire company on microprocessors when no one asked them to. The story of disciplined vision and the pivot that rewrote computing. Want to learn more about Andy Grove's strategic inflection point framework? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz

Eight engineers and two bankers sign ten dollar bills at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, walk out on Shockley, and set in motion the venture capital industry. How one act of mutiny seeded everything that followed. Want to learn more about how the Traitorous Eight created Silicon Valley? Check out the full online course at https://svstrategy.xyz