Talking about Platforms Incumbents, Platforms, and Beliefs with Alessio Cozzolino
Feb 18, 2026
Alessio Cozzolino, Assistant Professor of Strategy and researcher on digital platforms and technological change. He discusses how incumbents respond to disruption, when platforms help startups reshape ecosystems, the role of beliefs and metaphors in organizational change, and the paradoxical effects of AI on platform value creation and capture.
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Platform Is An Organizational Design
- Platforms are organizational forms, not just technology, combining matchmaking, enabling, coopetition, and distinct value creation/capture models.
- Alessio Cozzolino emphasizes that platforms coordinate multi-sided interactions and monetize where users create most value.
From Media Practitioner To Platform Scholar
- Alessio described his path from engineering management to working in Italian media and then a PhD at Bocconi studying newspapers as two-sided platforms.
- He used interviews with New York Times, Google, Huffington Post and others to study internet disruption of publishers.
How Flixbus Convinced Operators To Join
- He recounted Flixbus persuading many small bus operators to join a single integrated network by promising cost savings and broader demand.
- Operators later found it hard to exit after losing revenue opportunities when isolated, so they stayed in the network.