Ep. 02 James Currier - Unveiling the math behind society and what to do about it

In this episode, we have a boundaryless conversation with James Currier one of Silicon Valley’s foremost experts in growth and network effects. James is a four-time CEO of VC backed companies and a pioneer of user-generated models, viral marketing, A/B testing, crowdsourcing, and myriad of other growth techniques that have since been adopted by nearly all technology companies. In 2015, James co-founded NFX, a $150M early-stage venture capital firm focused on network effect businesses along with Pete Flint and Gigi Levy Weiss. In this conversation, we explore the real and so far unseen boundaries of the transition towards an economy more heavily based on marketplaces and market-networks, and how this transformation both shapes and is shaped by the major shifts and challenges that are currently emerging in the global society, including environmental, social, political, regulatory. We talk about the need for strong and charismatic leaders to steward these shifts, as well as the need to re-train people to gain the right competencies to deal with an increasingly digital, networked economy and transforming industries. 

Read more on our Medium story https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/

Here are some important links from the conversation:

> Ben Evans’ presentation “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” during the World Economic Forum in January 2020, https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations 

> Simone Cicero: “Why the Next Paradigm Shift may not be Technological”, https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/paradigm-shift-regulation-af48b87a0eeb 

> Ben Thompson, The End of the Beginning, https://stratechery.com/2020/the-end-of-the-beginning/

> Niall Ferguson (2017), The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35629744-the-square-and-the-tower

> Libra cryptocurrency, https://libra.org/en-US/

> Lambda school, https://lambdaschool.com/

> Incredible health, https://www.incrediblehealth.com/

> Hire.com, https://www.peoplefluent.com/ 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

Music by liosound.

Recorded on March 18th 2020