“Beat Amazon!” Is Not a Business Plan for Startups

Craig Mod, advisor to Medium.com and other start-ups, as well as a writer and former designer for Flipboard, delivered The Yale Publishing Course Keynote on Sunday night. The official title of the talk was "An Equilibrium in Digital Publishing?: Have We Hit a Point of Stasis For the Immediate Future of the book?", but the sub-text (or warning to start-ups) was simply: "'Beat Amazon!' is Stupid!"

Instead of concentrating on "beating Amazon" (which isn't bloody likely in Mod's view), publishers - indeed, any and all who are interested in keeping publishing alive