The Moat
The Platform Is a Middleman That Middlemans the Middlemen.
Above every broker sits a bigger doorway taking a cut of all the brokers.
Airbnb owns no houses. Uber owns no cars. Booking owns no hotels. They are middlemen sitting above an army of smaller middlemen and operators, taking a slice of everything that flows through - the purest, highest form of the position. They built the doorway that the doorway-owners have to use. That is the penthouse of this whole game.
Understand this and your ambition changes. You don't just want to be a middleman in a market; eventually you want to own the place where the middlemen themselves transact. It's the difference between taking a toll on one road and owning the map every road is drawn on. Keep climbing until you can see that level - it's where the real fortunes sit.
The biggest money is the platform every other middleman has to pass through.
This is one of 48 laws from MIDDLEMAN - The 48 Laws of the Money in the Middle. Read it in full to climb the whole building, floor by floor.
Read the whole building.
Three books by Mohamed El Hadri. Start anywhere. Climb in order.
