Monopolies exaggerate their competition, competitive businesses exaggerate themselves
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Monopolies lie to protect themselves. They try to conceal the monopoly, and exaggerate the power of their competition, to avoid unwanted (regulatory and media) attention. They frame their market as a union of several large markets to look smaller.
Competitive businesses exaggerate the difference of their company compared to competitors to differentiate themselves and exaggerate their (market) power. They define their market as an intersection of smaller markets to look big 1.
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When you hear that most restaurants fail within 1-2 years, you instinct is to come up with a story about how yours is different. No screenwriter wants to admit that their new movie simply rehashes what has already been done before (Everything-is-a-remix). ↩
References
- Zero to One, Peter Thiel
Links to this note
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