| url | https://stratechery.com/2023/openais-windows-play/ |
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Ben Thompson’s analysis of OpenAI’s first DevDay, framing the company’s strategy as a Windows-style platform play built on top of a Facebook-style consumer hit.
The core argument
Thompson’s diagnosis of platform creation:
There is nothing like IBM and its dominant position in enterprise today; rather, the route to becoming a platform is to first be a massively popular product. Acquiring developers and users is not a chicken-and-egg problem: it is clear that you must get the users first.
This inverts the conventional wisdom that platforms recruit developers, who recruit users. In the modern era, Thompson argues, you recruit users with a killer product, then recruit developers because that’s where the users already are. Microsoft did it with Windows. Apple did it with iPhone. OpenAI is doing it with ChatGPT.
Why it matters here
This piece is the strategic frame underneath ChatGPT’s PMF case study: the consumer product wasn’t a side bet, it was the only way to earn the right to be a platform. It pairs with openai-plans-altman (Altman’s own version of the same argument) and connects to aggregation-theory (Thompson’s broader framework).
For the strategic implication, see distribution — when capability is commoditizing, distribution is the only durable lever. ChatGPT’s moat isn’t the model. It’s the 300M people who already opened the tab.