[Book Sip] "Seize the Opportunity"... 'Kakao Naver, Is It Okay to Buy Now?'

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart and create a point of contact with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor's note

Kakao, Naver, Baedal Minjok, Netflix, Danggeun Market... The rise of platform companies that have completely changed consumption patterns is fierce. This book is a fundamental guide to platforms that predicts the future these platform companies will shape. It covers the basic concepts of platform companies, the founding process of each company, stories of failure, differentiation, and the future ahead.

The extraordinary power of platforms lies in their ability to transcend online and offline boundaries. As long as customers are secured, it does not matter whether it is online or offline, the real world or the metaverse [a compound word of meta (meaning virtual or abstract) and universe (meaning the real world)]. Kakao, which dominates mobile, was also concerned with expanding its business beyond online to offline. This is why they formed a team for O2O (Online to Offline) business. A task force (TF) was created to create something out of nothing. The TF was named Tamgu Saenghwal (Exploration Life). Although specific business items were not decided, the direction to create a ‘lifestyle platform’ was firm.

"If I were to leave my fortune, I would leave it to Musk, not a charity. Because he can change the future." Larry Page, co-founder of Google, described Elon Musk, who is relentlessly challenging to change the world, in this way. In fact, Musk set his life goal at age 16 to ‘save humanity.’ Making simple products was not his dream. He was changing the new world through mobility innovation from the sky and earth to space. Sometimes he uttered absurd ideas like moving humanity to Mars by 2031, but his words were not just boasting. This is why the evaluation that ‘what Musk says may seem absurd at first but will eventually become reality’ is made.

Experts believe the biggest reason for Yahoo’s downfall was its failure to find a clear identity like ‘Search = Google’ and ‘SNS = Facebook.’ Although it grew into the world’s largest portal company, it continued sprawling expansions without a core axis, causing everything it had built to collapse. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, also said, “I don’t know if Yahoo is a content company or a technology company. Choose one. I already know which direction I would choose.” Although he was the head of a completely different company, this statement accurately pointed out Yahoo’s weakness.

Kakao Naver, Is It Okay to Buy Now? | Written by Park Jaewon | Mate Books | 18,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.