This month’s issue of the HBR’s Spotlight was on the subject of how platforms are reshaping business. The subject of platforms are exciting from a technical standpoint as they require very little physical infrastructure and if engineered properly can be scaled orders of magnitude to accommodate rapid growth. From a business mindset owning a successful platform can be perceived as a mechanism to generating seemingly effortless wealth; scaling costs can be fractional to the revenue return on an exponentially growing user base of producers and consumers. The players of a good platform are manifold and can provide meaningful value to all, each in its own way.