The Power (and Dangers) of Platforms within Commerce A long-time guiding principle for Equal Ventures’ investment into the retail space has been “Be Mindful of the Power of Platforms.” Platforms are incredibly exciting and dominant businesses. They can produce immense economic efficiency (for both the owner of the platform and its users), but they aren’t without their own set of perils. Platform businesses like Salesforce, Apple and Amazon (all of which have advanced app/developer ecosystems with billion dollar businesses built upon them) have tremendous captivity over not only their customers, but also their business partners and developers working within their ecosystems. These platforms historically have symbiotic relationships with these partners — after all, it’s the success of these partners that drives the utility and differentiation of the overall platform from others). However, we’ve recently seen a repositioning of this posturing that reminds us of the power of these platforms and the potential pitfalls of building upon them.