I don't think it's vertically integrated in the classic sense. This isn't oil company buying supplier. It's a tech company building the complete experience including non tech parts. The end result looks more like a company that we wouldn't call vertically integrated. E.g. Uber competes with taxi companies but I don't think we'd call taxi companies vertically integrated.
It may be closer to what is sometimes called the "Whole Product"[1]. In either case, what he's talking about isn't really anything new. And it's not necessarily good for anybody involved either. There are a lot of people, for example, who don't want "Apple style end to end integration" if it means being tied to Apple for everything.
A customer who truly wants "best in class" up and down the stack still wants suppliers to adhere to something somewhat akin to the "Unix philosophy" or the idea of "small pieces, loosely joined".
This "whole product", "full stack", "vertical integration" stuff has a role to play for sure, but let's not pretend like it's some earth shatteringly new strategic idea, or the be all end all.
Yeah I thought about using "vertical integration" but that's a pretty overloaded term at this point. Usually refers to existing businesses buying up suppliers/buyers to control production and pricing. I think "whole product" (from Crossing the Chasm) might also work. Happy to call it something else but I think it's useful to have a word for what's happening.
"Vertically integrated" is strongly tied to physical goods production. A new term (full-stack or whatever) is warranted to include all the software, UI/UX, scaling, social media, etc which are a new part of business; the bit-pushing and user-attention-getting sides.
I do. Coining terms is a great way to drive attention to your product or service. We can fight all we want against the terms "unicorn" and "rockstar", but they have worked to signal things about specific "tech founders" and "computer engineers". Furthermore, using the terminology will work until it doesn't.
What I disagree on is that this is not a new phenomenon. We can actually explain why these companies are winning, it's just that the context is different this time.
