Martin Casado traces 50 years of network effect theory: how jargon became babel
adityaag · x · 2026-10-20
a16z partner Martin Casado offers a tl;dr intellectual history of "network effects," arguing business jargon chaos stems from divergent definitions.
- 1974: Rohlfs at Bell Labs models communications networks around subscribers and their interactions
- 1985: Katz & Shapiro generalize it, but lose the implicit network concept — Casado calls the work largely tautological and useless
- 1994: Liebowitz & Margolis pick apart Katz-Shapiro and classify things better (a paper he recommends)
- 2000: Rochet & Tirole split out two-sided marketplaces as a separate category
- Business press branched off at various points, producing a tower of babel of working definitions
Related event: a16z's Casado: "Network Effects" May Be the Most Abused Term in Business(4 posts)→
More from Companies & People
- Delhi's DevDay Exchange community hackathon set for Nov 1, a full-day Codex build sprint — gabrielchua · 2026-10-20
- Stripe vet's new-grad playbook: from faxing chargeback evidence to building Radar — hazelcough · 2026-10-20
- a16z hosts AI Infra Day with fal, Black Forest Labs, Krea and ElevenLabs engineers — venturetwins · 2026-10-20
- Meta Muse retention woes: 73% active on day one, only 23% by day 14, Morgan Stanley chart shows — SumitGup · 2026-10-20
- Transformer is fundraising for its new independent entity — ShakeelHashim · 2026-10-20
- OpenAI's health lead: 300M people weekly ask ChatGPT health questions — a16z · 2026-10-20