Boundaryless Conversations podcast is about exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous. 

Human organisations are today pressed by the need to reinvent themselves, in ways that are profoundly unclear and, at the same time exciting for the promises they bring.

This podcast is brought to you by Boundaryless, the company behind Platform Design Toolkit an open methodology to design strategies that mobilize ecosystems through scalable efficiencies and scalable learning.

https://www.boundaryless.io/resources/podcast

Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

A thought leader and pioneer in platforms and ecosystems, partner at Speed Invest and an instructor at Reforge, Sameer Singh joins us on this episode to reintroduce the world of platforms, challenge the idea of AI as a platform shift, and talk about what makes products truly memorable in a market over-proliferated with choices. 
He helps us “Separate signals from the noise,” and shares his practical insights into what makes today’s startups investable: from founders with missionary zeal to data-informed decision-making, and so much more. 
For anyone curious about the intersection of AI-enabled consumer experiences and the evolving world of platforms, this episode is a must-listen.

Sameer brings deep expertise in platforms with a sharp focus on scalable distribution models, retention, and core problem-solving.
In this episode, he discusses his recent investments, framing generative AI as a powerful layer within the technology stack - that can unlock new forms of multiplayer interactions and creative experiences.
As always, he shares practical insights for entrepreneurs navigating the evolving landscape of marketplaces, social products, and what the future looks like for AI-enabled consumer experiences.

Key Highlights
👉 True network effects are mathematically grounded and don’t change across technological eras.
👉Generative AI: is it a technology stack or a platform shift?
👉 Single-user AI interactions do not inherently generate network effects. True network effects arise from unique, structured multiplayer interactions.
👉 In consumer tech, founder background is less predictive of success; what matters more is the founder’s obsession with the problem and willingness to learn, and understand user behaviour.
👉For meaningful innovation, AI should enable new experiences or multiplayer interactions under the surface, rather than being exposed as a chat interface or standalone product. Direct, one-click AI interactions often reduce value and break potential network effects.
👉 A true platform combines a usable product, developer tools, a way to match users with applications, and an economic incentive for developers.

Topics /chapters
(00:00) Network Effects, Generative AI, and Platform Shifts 
(01:22) Introducing Sameer Singh
(03:07) Sameer’s Journey in Perspective
(07:16) What is changing in consumer companies?
(09:40) How do incumbent companies build for younger buyers?
(11:04) AI and Platform Shifts
(18:01) Building Solutions on GenerativeAI platforms
(24:26) AEO and LLMs as a Distribution Channel
(26:52) Does more content mean more action
(29:41) Scepticism on AI Frenzy
(37:59) Common threads among investable platform companies
(44:09) Where does value lie in a Consumer Market
(47:37) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/singh-sameer

Episode recorded on Sep 17, 2025

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast/

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo

Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music

#126 - Network Effects, Generative AI, and Platform Shifts with Sameer Singh

This episode frames the Boundaryless Conversation podcast: Simone Cicero, the original creator of the Platform Design Toolkit, and co-host and team-mate Stina Heikkilä present the main research questions that guide this exploration. 

Boundaryless Conversations podcast is about exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous. 

Human organisations are today pressed by the need to reinvent themselves, in ways that are profoundly unclear and, at the same time exciting for the promises they bring.

This podcast is brought to you by Boundaryless, the company behind Platform Design Toolkit an open methodology to design strategies that mobilize ecosystems through scalable efficiencies and scalable learning.

Here are some important links mentioned in the conversation.

> The Platform Design Toolkit - Boundaryless website: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com 

> The white paper 2020 launch - Simone Cicero, New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/new-foundations-for-platforms-in-the-2020-d785276c390e 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio find his portfolio here: https://audiojungle.net/user/liosound/portfolio?utf8=%E2%9C%93&order_by=sales

Liosound

Opening episode: Exploring the future of organising at scale with Boundaryless conversations

In this episode, we have a boundaryless conversation with Arthur Brock, chief architect of Holochain. Holochain is an alternative to blockchain for running fully Peer-to-Peer distributed applications and is shaping the social dynamics of our emerging post-industrial economy. 

In the show we widely cover the concept of Unenclosable carriers and how new technologies that are more inherently contextual and agent centred - instead of universal and global consensus-based - may open up new possibilities for coordination and organising, enabling governance through feedback loops. 

Here are some important links from the conversation:

> Arthur Brock, The Future of Governance is not Governments https://medium.com/metacurrency-project/the-future-of-governance-is-not-governments-9c894e17b1cd
> Arthur Brock, Unenclosable Carriers and the Future of Communication, https://medium.com/holochain/unenclosable-carriers-and-the-future-of-communication-4ac6045ac894
> Holochain: https://holochain.org/
> Holo Host: https://holo.host/
> Affordance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

Music by liosound.
Recorded on March 10th 2020

Ep. 01 Arthur Brock - Rewiring the technology to rewire the way we organise

In this episode, we have a boundaryless conversation with James Currier one of Silicon Valley’s foremost experts in growth and network effects. James is a four-time CEO of VC backed companies and a pioneer of user-generated models, viral marketing, A/B testing, crowdsourcing, and myriad of other growth techniques that have since been adopted by nearly all technology companies. In 2015, James co-founded NFX, a $150M early-stage venture capital firm focused on network effect businesses along with Pete Flint and Gigi Levy Weiss. 

In this conversation - which was amazingly insightful - we explore the real and so far unseen boundaries of the transition towards an economy more heavily based on marketplaces and market-networks, and how this transformation both shapes and is shaped by the major shifts and challenges that are currently emerging in the global society, including environmental, social, political, regulatory. 

We talk about the need for strong and charismatic leaders to steward these shifts, as well as the need to re-train people to gain the right competencies to deal with an increasingly digital, networked economy and transforming industries. 

Here are some important links from the conversation:

> Ben Evans’ presentation “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” during the World Economic Forum in January 2020, https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations 

> Simone Cicero: “Why the Next Paradigm Shift may not be Technological”, https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/paradigm-shift-regulation-af48b87a0eeb 

> Ben Thompson, The End of the Beginning, https://stratechery.com/2020/the-end-of-the-beginning/

> Niall Ferguson (2017), The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35629744-the-square-and-the-tower

> Libra cryptocurrency, https://libra.org/en-US/

> Lambda school, https://lambdaschool.com/

> Incredible health, https://www.incrediblehealth.com/

> Hire.com, https://www.peoplefluent.com/ 

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast 

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio find his portfolio here: https://audiojungle.net/user/liosound/portfolio?utf8=%E2%9C%93&order_by=sales

Music by liosound.
Recorded on March 18th 2020

Ep. 02 James Currier - Unveiling the math behind society (and what to do about it)

In this episode, we have a boundaryless conversation with Tomas Diez, a Venezuelan Urbanist specialized in digital fabrication and its implications on the future of cities and society. He is the co-founder and director of Fab Lab Barcelona at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and is a founding partner of the Fab City Global Initiative. 

In our conversation with Tomas, we explore the democratization of the production of goods, mainly through technological progress and open knowledge sharing, and how this might affect the evolution of platform-enabled ecosystem driven production. We ask Tomas - through the lens of this transformation - what new subjectivities and constituents are empowered to organize in ways that are different, whether synergistic or integrated, with current globalization and digitalization trends. Of course, we cannot avoid touching on the changing landscape of risk and policy-making, as we connect with Tomas in the midst of the global pandemic. We also talk about the future of education and the need to reconsider Western-centric values and ways of knowing.

Here are some important links from the conversation:

> Fab City: Locally Productive, Globally Connected, https://fab.city/

> Wendell Berry (1977): The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/146191.The_Unsettling_of_America

> Peter Noak (2010): Sex, Bombs and Burgers, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7829730-sex-bombs-and-burgers

> Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore (2017): A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet,
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34525475-a-history-of-the-world-in-seven-cheap-things

Dr. Zachary Stein on education in a changing technology landscape, http://www.zakstein.org/

Ep. 03 Tomas Diez - From Fab Cities to Fab Citizens: remaking organising

In this episode, we have a Boundaryless Conversation with John Robb, the owner and principal analyst for the monthly Global Guerrillas Report, that covers the intersection of War, Politics, and Technology.  Its goal is to provide people with the frameworks needed to make sense of our relentlessly chaotic world. In other words, John helps people think clearly at a time when that kind of help is in short supply.  

In our conversation with John, we explore how the rapid power shifts we're witnessing towards open source, and self-organizing networks are going to change the way we organize society and the economy.

We touched upon the fact that the emergent future of organizing may not disrupt or obsolete the existing markets, but rather coexist, and that there's no way we can get away with ignoring the question concerning technology as society literally "becomes a technological artefact" as John said.

Here are some important links from the conversation:
> John’s patreon page https://www.patreon.com/johnrobb
> David Ronfeld, Tribes, Institutions, Markets and Networks, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2005/P7967.pdf
> John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt (eds): Networks and Netwars, The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382.html
> Marshall McLuhan, whose ideas were frequently mentioned in the conversation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan
> The Cynefin Framework for Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic domains, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8
> Examples of games mentioned that allow modifications to be developed in the kind of open-source community: Fallout and Skyrim: https://fallout.bethesda.net/en/; https://elderscrolls.bethesda.net/en/skyrim
> Code Academy, https://www.codecademy.com/
> Cameo, a new platform for getting personalised messages from celebrities, https://www.cameo.com/
> The company where John in 1996 wrote the report “personal broadcast networks” https://go.forrester.com/
> How to Run a City Like Amazon and Other Fables, a multi-author future fiction imagining cities being run by different companies https://shop.meatspacepress.com/product/how-to-run-a-city-like-amazon-and-other-fables

Music by liosound.
Recorded on March 26th 2020

Ep.04 John Robb -Beyond markets: sense-making and organising, in a world of open networks

Boundaryless helps global customers with Business Strategy and Organization Design for the age of Ecosystems.
We do it by creating openly accessible frameworks and by supporting a community of organizations, institutions, and individuals through workshops, training, and consulting services. 

In this space we host all our audio recordings, including the Boundaryless Conversations podcast, a show focused on exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous. 

We used to be online at platformdesigntoolkit.com... now find us on our new website: www.boundaryless.io!

Email: hello@boundaryless.io