An Operating System for the Real World

An Operating System for the Real WorldTim O’Reilly@timoreilly

Concur Perfect Trip DevconOctober 2, 2013

@timoreilly #perfecttrip

“The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.”

-Edwin Schlossberg


The Internet as a Platform



2004: How can you call the Internet an operating system?

No kernelNo memory managementNo processor

Photo: Patrick Tufts http://www.flickr.com/photos/zippy/50537423/sizes/o/



An application that depends on cooperating cloud data services: - Location- Search- Speech recognition- Live Traffic- Imagery

What Is the Operating System for Google Maps?


Managing access not just to devices or hardwarecomponents, but to online, real-time data



Lesson #1: Be Creativein Finding and Integrating Data Sources


An Operating System for the Real World

In thinking about the internet operating system,I didn’t go far enough


It’s Not Just the “Internet”


The Google Autonomous Vehicle

“We don’t have better algorithms. We just have more data.” - Peter Norvig, Chief Scientist, Google


AI plus the recorded memory of augmented humans


Lesson 2: Enrich Online Datawith Knowledge of the Real World




Lesson #3: Do Less


Lesson #4: Get creative with hardware, not just software


Lesson #5: Build “software above the level of a single device”


Lesson #6: Harness network effects in data


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Lesson #7: Rethink workflows and experiences



The Apple Store


Imagine Google Glass at Hotel Check-in


“Uber is a $3.5 billion lesson in building for how the world *should* work instead of optimizing for how the world *does* work” - Aaron Levie of Box.net



Taxi Magic


Uber and Taxi Magic Rely on that “Internet Operating System”

Real Time Location SensingReal Time CommunicationsIdentityPaymentReputation


Lesson #8: Close the loop


“What I learned from Google is to only invest in things that close the loop.”- Chris Sacca


Lesson #9: Anticipate User Needs





“You shouldn’t have toask for a taxi. One should show up”

“You shouldn’t have to call to change connecting flights. The app should know that the flight’s been delayed, and even rebookthe flight for you.”


Lesson #10: A Platform Beats an Application Every Time



Keep in Mind That There are Two Types of Platform

One Ring to Rule Them All

Small Pieces Loosely Joined


Lesson #11: Create More Value Than You Capture


There’s a wonderful section in Les Miserables about the good that Jean Valjean does as a businessman (operating under the pseudonym of Father Madeleine). Through his industry and vision, he makes an entire region prosperous, so that “there was no pocket so obscure that it had not a little money in it; no dwelling so lowly that there was not some little joy within it.”

And the key point: “Father Madeleine made his fortune; but a singular thing in a simple man of business, it did not seem as though that were his chief care. He appeared to be thinking much of others, and little of himself.”


I call it “the big lie” of modern business






Lesson #12: Work on stuff that matters




Bonus Lesson: Idealism is the best marketing


Open SourceWeb 2.0

The Maker MovementOpen Data

Open Government


Why I love hackers






Show Twilio related projects



Text My Bus

Sadly, that’s not an uber-like timeframe. But at least knowing is a big help.


Government as a platform


Government as a platform means an end to the design of only complete, closed “applications.” Instead the government should provide fundamental services on which we, the people, (also known as “the market”) build applications.

Government as a Platform


Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956

Dwight Eisenhower


google home page / information age


“We’ve opened up huge amounts of government data to the American people, and put it on the Internet for free.... And what’s happening is entrepreneurs and business owners are now using that data -- the people’s data --to create jobs and solve problems that government can’t solve by itself or can’t do as efficiently.”

Barack Obama


“The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.”-Abraham Lincoln, July 1,1854