The first big technology platform was the web, which digitised information, subjecting knowledge to the power of algorithms; it came to be dominated by Google.
The second great platform was social media, running primarily on mobile phones. It digitised people and subjected human behavior and relationships to the power of algorithms, and it is ruled by Facebook and WeChat.
We are now at the dawn of the third platform, which will digitise the rest of the world. On this platform, all things and places will be machine-readable, subject to the power of algorithms.
Whoever dominates this grand third platform will become among the wealthiest and most powerful people and companies in history, just as those who now dominate the first two platforms have.
Also, like its predecessors, this new platform will unleash the prosperity of thousands more companies in its ecosystem, and a million new ideas – and problems – that weren’t possible before machines could read the world.
