[covidacct]

Seems tautological, especially for a platform biz. Companies that don't "aggregate demand" fail because "aggregating demand" is just a fancy way of saying "have a critical mass of customers". It's tautological because companies that "succeed" by aggregating supply eventually also aggregate demand because... well, because companies without customers don't "succeed". So, if you "succeed", you've aggregated demand, regardless of whether you were able to aggregate demand by aggregating supply. Teasing out the causality is hard, but it'll always be possible to post-facto confirm the hypothesis that successful (platform) companies aggregate demand.

The substantive conjecture behind his tautology is about the economics and business model of SDC-as-ridesharing. Seems like a moot point to me. A working SDC will be enormously profitable regardless of whether the company that builds it gets to own the platform. Plus, the big auto cos might be able to afford to not win the SDC race, but they certainly can't afford to not even play the game. A lot of the money spent on SDCs is seen as hedging, not as serious plays.