Guests on Air
Members loginRequest interview

The Lifetime Partner — Why a Twenty-Five-Year Bet on One Platform Still Pays

Building a Business on Another Company's Platform: twenty-five years partnered with Adobe, and what long-term platform dependence demands of a founder.

Max Dunn started Silicon Publishing in August 2000 with one other person and has spent all twenty-five years of it automating Adobe technology, growing the firm past twenty people without ever moving to a second platform. Most founders are warned never to depend on another company's software, since the vendor can change its pricing, its direction, or its whole product line without asking. He argues the opposite worked: going deeper into one stack is what kept the business valuable, and the team now automates Firefly Services, InDesign, Photoshop, Frame.io and After Effects in the cloud. He explains what a quarter century on someone else's platform actually demands, from reading where the vendor is heading before it announces it, to earning the access that turns a supplier into a collaborator. Listeners leave with a clearer test for when tying their company to a big platform is the smart bet, and when it is a trap.

About Max Dunn

Max Dunn, podcast guest

President

Since 2000 Co-founded and leads Silicon PublishingBertelsmann Former Director of Software DevelopmentAdobe Publishing automation partner since the 1990sInDesign User Group speaker on automation and AI

Since August 2000 I have run one company on one platform, which is the opposite of the advice most founders are given.

I co-founded Silicon Publishing with Alissa Whitney, now our CTO. There were two of us. We are over twenty now, and in all that time we have never moved to a second platform: everything we build automates Adobe technology. The conventional warning is never to tie your business to another company's software, because the vendor can change its pricing, its direction or its whole product line without asking you. I took the opposite bet and went deeper, and I can say what a quarter of a century on someone else's platform actually demands of you.

Before that I was a software engineer at Bertelsmann in the 1990s, building early systems that combined automated pre-press and database publishing with workflow management. I have worked in publishing automation since the mid-1990s, which means I watched the last great upheaval in this industry from the inside, back when layouts were still assembled by hand. It is the closest thing we have to a rehearsal for what AI is doing to creative work now, and I am candid about what that earlier shift cost and who it passed over.

The part of the business I am proudest of is the bench.

View profile →

Book Max Dunn for your show

Request an interview →