I find it interesting that the two example companies of Uber and AirBnB that succeeded by “focusing” solving problems, did so breaking the law and pushing externalities onto others. AirBnB runs afoul of the hotel laws and makes the neighbors of AirBnb hosts have to deal with the problems while also decreasing supply of housing and pushing up housing prices in cities and communities. Uber basically was an illegal taxi service and succeeded by paying their workers often times less than minimum wage by classifying them as contractors. They also took shortcuts on their self-driving cars and killed a pedestrian. They have also tried to suppress rape victims stories going so far as to invade their medical records.

To succeed as a business, you have to do something that others can’t do or won’t do. If you have a tech advantage, you can do stuff that others can’t. If you don’t develop a tech advantage, you have to do stuff others won’t. In these two cases of AirBnB and Uber, it was breaking the law.