2002/09/25

Eddie Kessler describes programming at Napster.

Ray Ozzie has more on platforms. “Finding the ‘right’ price point for a software platform is critical.” To me this sounds like a fancy way of saying, “I groove all that stuff about how platforms need to be cheap and ubiquitous, but I can’t bring myself to do it.” The price, Ray says, “must be high enough both 1) to maintain a perception of value in the platform, and 2) to create significant margins well before ubiquity is assured so that the ecosystem is assured of the platform’s ultimate viability.” What he doesn’t mention: if you lower the price on the only product you’re selling, you have a revenue hit, which will not make your investors happy, and you may run out of money and have to close. But that must be what he’s thinking.

About the author.

In 2000 I co-founded Fog Creek Software, where we created lots of cool things like the FogBugz bug tracker, Trello, and Glitch. I also worked with Jeff Atwood to create Stack Overflow and served as CEO of Stack Overflow from 2010-2019. Today I serve as the chairman of the board for Stack Overflow, Glitch, and HASH.