In some recent client work, an emerging theme is that consumer tech. / media start-ups no longer control the most important bits of their UI. Today, if you’re a consumer technology or digital media company, nearly all of your customers will first encounter you through a channel like Facebook, Instagram, twitter, an app store or an email application. In each case: You, as the app developer or content owner have minimal control over how your application or content looks and works in these platforms.

Silicon Valley, despite being at the center of the digital world, is a hopelessly insular and actually rather hermetic place. Even its famous immigrant culture emphasizes joining the SV way. For all its talk of innovation, it resists almost anyone who is not part of its mainstream. Michael Wolff, How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley