This is a significant trend:

Andreessen Horowitz: “Suppose you develop a new technology that is valuable to some industry. The old approach was to sell or license your technology to the existing companies in that industry. The new approach is to build a complete, end-to-end product or service that bypasses existing companies.”

Remember the old “disintermediation” view of how the Internet would change industries? Well that absolutely happened. And it happened with exactly the impact on customer focus on which it was predicted.  

But now this! Rather than disintermediation of industries you get the situation where a new entrant can create a “stacked” entry and apply an end-to-end service. 

This reminds me of the first question that popped into my head at a recent Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) financial services event on “systems of engagement”:

Is it easier to build systems of engagement on top of an organisation with good systems of record, or to build (or aquire) systems of record for an organisation with good systems of engagement?

So, does this mean this?