Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder & CEO of Slack: Platform Or Product

Name: Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder & CEO of Slack: Platform Or Product
Uploaded: 2018-06-01T21:45:50+00:00
Duration: 45 s
Channel: Jason M. Lemkin
Description: In this brief excerpt, Stewart Butterfield reflects on Slack's early perception as a product rather than a platform, acknowledging that the distinction…

1 Jun 2018 · 1 min

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In this brief excerpt, Stewart Butterfield reflects on Slack's early perception as a product rather than a platform, acknowledging that the distinction blurred as communication itself became platform-like. He emphasizes that pre‑defining Slack as a platform or product is impractical; instead, the team should identify where they can create genuine value for users and pursue that path, whether it leads to a platform or remains a product. Ultimately, success is measured by the amount of value delivered to customers.

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There was definitely conversations and kind of idle speculation about Slack being a platform at the moment that we were getting started in developing it, but we definitely thought of it as a product. And now that's definitely not true anymore, 'cause communication is a platform-like activity. It's so hard to know in advance, so that choice up front, it's more like, figure out where you can generate real value for people and pursue that. And if that ends up being a platform, good. If it ends up being a product, good. And that's, I think, one thing that we do stay focused on completely, because in the long term, the measure of our success is the amount of value we deliver to customers.