

“Smart companies try to commoditize their products' complements.” (2002) - gwern
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html

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gwern
This is a perennial submission
([http://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/http%3A%2F%2...](http://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joelonsoftware.com%2Farticles%2FStrategyLetterV.html))
but hasn't shown up in a while. I'm resubmitting it because it's part of the
canon: you can't understand Silicon Valley big politics/business without
understanding this concept in some way - otherwise, you'll be mystified by
moves like Google's Android or big tech giants going into fields that seem
only tangentially related to their core business.

