#84 Gardening Platforms and the Future of Open Ecosystems with Alex Komoroske

In our first episode this season, we dive into the world of open platforms and the future of organizing. With his thought-provoking presentation of “Gardening Platforms,” our guest Alex Komoroske helps create a shift in mindset towards a more achievable and sustainable approach in creating impactful technology solutions. We explore his key learnings from leading products at Google Chrome and how he continues to implement these in his own journey today. Touching on questions of morality, control, and designing for the nefarious users, there’s so much Alex offers in this podcast, and we hope you take from it as much as we did.

Alex Komoroske is truly an inspiration when we think of the potential that powerful technology solutions can create. For 13 years, he worked with Google, building some of the most cherished products that came from the organization. Heading product for a company that affects billions of lives is no easy feat, and Alex did just that for Google Chrome. He took his vast ocean of knowledge, and for the last two years has helped shape Stripe as their Head of Strategy. In his flip-book style presentation, aptly titled, “Gardening Platforms,” he discusses the fundamental emergent power dynamics of platforms, how to evolve an existing platform to continuously improve it, and how to create a new platform from scratch. This got us truly hooked, and we are glad that Alex joined us to discuss this and many more mind-tinkering concepts in our podcast. We touch upon the inherently complex and evolutionary nature of platforms, the role of composability and modularity, and what it means to be sensitive to the socio-technical implications of your solutions.

Get ready to be inspired by his high-impact journey, brutal honesty, and some remarkable recommendations of books and concepts that have shaped his thoughts and processes.

Key Highlights
👉 Platforms can be imagined as a swarm of energy, between multiple entities interacting with one another.
👉 Why you don’t always need a big-bang for product launches; oftentimes, self-accumulating users are what’s best for the platform’s success.
👉 Why a gardener mindset, rather than a builder mindset, is poised to reward a product with more success.
👉 How organizations can prepare and design for open platforms that are resilient and expansive, yet chaotic and hard to control.

Topics / chapters
(00:00) Intro - Gardening Platforms and the Future of Open Ecosystems
(00:39) Simone welcomes the audience
(01:26) Alex Introduction
(04:28) Platforms as Complex Adaptive Systems and Gardening Platforms
(09:08) “Coherence” as an attribute for platform development in Open vs. Closed Platforms
(12:22) Rebound from Centralized Platforms
(16:36) Translating chaotic and complex ecosystems into actionable initiatives in organizations
(29:04) Trust, Organizational Accountability, and Micro enterprises
(39:18) Moral implications of building platforms and open source movements
(49:08) Design for Participation
(53:42) Power of Decision Makers in influencing platform design
(01:00:09) Breadcrumbs (Suggested content from Alex)

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://boundaryless.io/podcast/alex-komoroske

Episode recorded on September 30, 2023.

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Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music