This thesis examines how institutional pressures and platform loop interactions shape the adoption, execution, and outcomes of blitzscaling—hypergrowth prioritizing speed over efficiency—in digital platforms, addressing a critical gap in understanding platform blitzscaling drivers and mechanism.
Through an in-depth case study of Uber (2011–2016), I find that Uber’s choice to blitzscale was not solely driven by competitive logic. Rather, it was shaped by institutional isomorphism: mimetic pressures encouraged imitation of aggressive market expansion strategies; normative pressures from the venture capital ecosystem equated rapid growth with legitimacy; and coercive pressures—arising from regulatory gaps and uneven enforcement—allowed Uber to scale rapidly before facing post-hoc backlash. These findings empirically support DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) claim that organizational behavior often conforms to prevailing social expectations, not just market efficiency. The study also explores how Uber activated and intertwined three key platform loops—capital, network, and data—to operationalize blitzscaling. Capital served as the ignition loop, enabling Uber to subsidize riders and drivers to accelerate network effects. As platform activity grew, Uber’s data loop emerged as a force multiplier, refining pricing, routing, and matching algorithms to further improve operations and reinforced market dominance. The interaction of these loops created a reinforcing engine for scale.
The thesis contributes to existing platform and strategy literature by embedding blitzscaling within an institutional framework and by empirically demonstrating how internal loop architectures operationalize blitzscaling.
