What actually limits how many great companies can exist?
Patrick Collison argues classic competitive moats (network effects, regulation, economies of scale) are overrated — the real constraint on how many effective organizations exist in a sector is sociocultural: people's willingness and ability to organize talent.
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"What is the binding constraint on the number of effective organizations that exist in the world?... It's about motivation, ideas and people's willingness and determination to organize talent." — Patrick Collison, on The Dwarkesh Podcast
Using payments as an example — a sector with every textbook reason to consolidate — Collison notes a whole fintech ecosystem exists anyway, suggesting moats matter less than the supply of people willing and able to build organizations.