Inc.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE PLATFORMS

Giant tech companies love founders. Until they start getting too successful.

Jeremy Edberg has some advice: Don’t build a business on Amazon’s digital turf. Edberg, a veteran infrastructure architect for Netflix, Reddit, and PayPal, has seen the movie many times: A software startup launches, catering to the millions of companies that use Amazon Web Services, and quickly attracts customers—and then Amazon, with its God’s-eye view of its platform, spots it and trots out a cheaper product boasting full AWS integration. Within six months, the startup folds. But, contrary to his own advice, Edberg chose to build his new cloud-management startup, MinOps,

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Inc.

Inc.26 min read
How They Stay On Top
Karen Robinovitz & Sara Schiller Stirring Up Hope in Unexpected Places Co-founders of the Sloomoo Institute TWO things helped Karen Robinovitz, 52 (near right), and Sara Schiller, 53, overcome the most devastating periods in their lives: friends and
Inc.2 min read
Family Office
The most stressful part of Pistola founder Grace Na's day isn't what you'd expect for the founder of a denim company with 40 employees and a factory right in Los Angeles. It's placing a lunch order for her head of tech and pattern and her head financ
Inc.3 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
Screen Play
Joe Thomas and his co-founders were two weeks away from running out of money for their software startup when, in 2016, they launched a new product and went all in on prerecorded videos as a workplace communication tool. That product generated thousan

Related Books & Audiobooks