Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Peers Inc summary
Robin Chase
How People and Platforms Are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism
13 mins
Table of Contents
Peers Inc
summarized in 6 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 6
A successful sharing platform makes it easy to share resources.
You’re probably familiar with the expression “sharing is caring,” right? Well, it’s not just a lesson for preschool kids anymore; today, it’s valid for the modern business economy too.
The concepts of sharing and collaborating are the backbone of a successful new business model that relies on excess capacity.
Excess capacity refers to anything owned that isn’t being used all the time, or to its full capacity. This might be a car, a second apartment or even tools and appliances that are just sitting in storage.
When looked at critically, owning is an inefficient concept. It comes with costs and hassles, and the phenomenon of everyone owning one of everything is pushing the planet’s resources to the limit. Clearly, it’s time to find a better way.
The benefits of a sharing economy can perhaps best be seen by looking at car ownership. You have to pay for parking, insurance and maintenance. Plus, every car adds to the traffic jams and toxic emissions that already plague most major cities.
So why own a car when you can share it? This is the question that the author, Robin Chase, asked in 1999. Chase had realized that people didn’t use their cars to their full capacity and launched Zipcar to help them share this resource.
But having an excess capacity of something is only the root of a good collaborative model. There also needs to be a platform to make sharing easy and efficient.
After all, people borrowed cars from friends long before Zipcar was around. But coordinating that exchange wasn’t always easy. Zipcar’s platform offers a simple way to find out when every nearby car is available.
In conclusion, a successful sharing platform will do two things: identify the excess capacity and provide the necessary hardware and software to make it easy to share that resource. In this way, the business becomes a valuable service that does something that would take individuals a lot of time and money to do themselves.
Want to see all full key ideas from Peers Inc?
Key ideas in Peers Inc
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
What is Peers Inc about?
Peers Inc (2015) provides an insider’s look at how the modern sharing economy is changing the way companies and consumers do business. It also explains how this economy may be a cure for the planet’s many ills, from rising temperatures to dwindling resources.
Best quote from Peers Inc
In all cases, leveraging excess capacity comes at a far lower cost than buying raw material.
—Robin Chase
Who should read Peers Inc?
- Readers interested in Zipcar, Airbnb and similar companies
- Entrepreneurs
- Climate-change activists
Categories with Peers Inc
Books like Peers Inc
People ❤️ Blinkist
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
People also liked
Start growing with Blinkist now
26 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers