Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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Economies of Scale

Mental models

Unit costs falling as volume rises, through fixed-cost absorption, purchasing power, density or learning. Scale is a real advantage only where the cost curve keeps falling and where a rival cannot buy the same volume; otherwise it becomes bureaucracy with a bigger payroll. Chandler's history is the record of which industries this actually worked in.

Books 5Experts 3Recommenders 18Resources 4

Start here

  1. ScaleGeoffrey West, 2017
  2. 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business StrategyHamilton Helmer, 2016
  3. The Visible HandAlfred D. Chandler, 1977
The Visible HandThe Visible Hand
T1 The Visible Hand
Alfred D. Chandler · 1977
Open LibraryGoodreads

How salaried managers replaced markets in coordinating US business, 1840 to 1920.

Recommended by: Paul Graham

Competitive StrategyCompetitive Strategy
T1 Competitive Strategy
Michael E. Porter · 1980
Open LibraryGoodreads

Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Bill Gurley, Jamie Dimon

ScaleScale
T1 Scale
Geoffrey West · 2017
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why organisms, cities and companies follow power laws set by their supply networks.

Recommended by: Nat Eliason, Bill Miller, Marc Benioff and 2 others

Scale and ScopeScale and Scope
T2 Scale and Scope
Alfred D. Chandler · 1990
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why big industrial firms in the US, Britain and Germany rose or lagged, 1880 to 1940.

7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strate7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
T2 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
Hamilton Helmer · 2016
Open LibraryGoodreads

Seven sources of lasting advantage, each a benefit plus a barrier to rivals.

Recommended by: Alex Lieberman, Brett Adcock, Daniel Ek and 6 others

More mental models

← Deferred GratificationErgodicity →All mental models