Feed the Platform

When I lived in Portland, there was a curious stretch along NW 23rd Avenue where three Italian restaurants stood right next to each other. To me, it made no sense. Why would a restaurant choose to open right beside its competition? Wouldn’t it be smarter to go where none existed?

But of course, I discovered this phenomenon is everywhere. Portland itself is home to a concentration of global sports and outdoor brands such as Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, Columbia, alongside smaller but thriving companies like Keen, Icebreaker, and Danner. The same pattern holds true in other industries, so much so that the region in which the industries cluster becomes synonymous with the industry itself: Silicon Valley, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, Detroit, Hollywood.

Competitors don’t spread out. They cluster.

When competitors cluster, they create a shared ecosystem of talent, capital, infrastructure, and even culture. And when they do so, everyone benefits. These industries invest in a shared platform, creating conditions where more innovation, more opportunity, and more collective value can emerge.

What’s the opposite? Zero-sum thinking. Your gain is my loss. If I share, I lose. It’s tempting to think that the pie is limited. There’s only so much to go around so I better hoard, fight, invest my resources in gaining as much as I can while undermining your gains.

But zero-sum thinking inevitably leads to the tragedy of the commons. When farmers overgraze, when companies pollute the air or water, when a manager takes all the credit instead of developing their people, it depletes a shared resource. We see it in environmental destruction, exploitative economics, and even in cultural and political life.

Zero-sum thinking breeds suspicion, erodes trust, and prevents collaboration. But what makes it a losing proposition is that it invests its energy on protecting turf rather than creating value. Zero-sum power eats its own foundation. It cannot sustain itself without harming what it rests on.

This hit home for me just last week while attending my nephew’s graduation from Wharton. The ceremony was beautiful. But what moved me most was the people. More than half of the graduating class were international students or first-generation Americans. Families attended from all over the world, cheering in the stands for their son, daughter, sister, brother, grandchild, niece or nephew who made it that far. Families bursting with pride, having made enormous sacrifices and investments, so their children could sit in those rows, wear those caps, and walk that stage.

When we open the doors to others, provide opportunity and education, we gain tremendously. International students and scholars are what made the United States a research and innovation mecca. In the 2023-24 academic year alone, international students contributed $44 billion to the U.S. economy. It’s staggering to contemplate their contribution to scientific discoveries, technological advancements, and economic growth. More than three-quarters of all patents from institutions like the University of California system and Stanford University had at least one foreign-born inventor. More than one-third of of U.S. Nobel laureates in chemistry, economics, medicine, and physics were immigrants, and almost half of them obtained their highest academic degrees from a U.S. university. And more than 25% of U.S. billion-dollar startups have at least one founder who was an international student.

The data are incontrovertible. When we feed the platform we win. When we see opportunity as zero-sum, we lose.

Feeding the platform is a smart use of power, one that generates life, possibility, and shared good. But the idea of feeding the platform isn’t just for CEOs or policymakers or universities. It’s for all of us, something to practice daily:

• Celebrate others’ wins instead of resenting them — it builds goodwill and expands your influence when it’s your turn to shine.
• Share your network and introduce people who can help each other — it strengthens your own social capital and puts you at the center of opportunity.
• Mentor someone junior, give advice, lend a hand — it enhances your leadership brand and often brings fresh insight in return.
• Share information freely with your teammate or another team — as the highest-performing teams do, it leads to better decisions and raises your team’s game.
• Study together. Share notes. Encourage the person who’s struggling, instead of competing for the curve — because building allies now pays off when you’re under pressure later.

Power is a renewable resource, the more you use it to expand opportunity, to feed others, the more stable and enduring it is.

In a time when our leaders are narrowing opportunity, using their power to tear down instead of build up, and turning us against each other with fear-based zero-sum thinking, it’s more important than ever to feed the platform.

Because what we feed grows and benefits us all.