This means that time passes faster than we think.
Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2025 6:40 am
More than Chrome
Miller and Harsh Agrawal co-founded The Browser Company in 2019. They had worked together before: in 2011 they founded Branch, which they sold to Facebook in 2014. Eventually, both left Facebook to pursue other endeavors: Agrawal founded several startups, Miller was the chief product officer at the White House under President Barack Obama, and then joined Thrive Capital as an investor.
Miller recalls that when he worked at the White House, his boss and chief digital officer, Jason Goldman, once said words he couldn’t forget: “Platforms have all the leverage. And if you care about the future iran number data of the internet, or the way we use our computers, or you want to fix some aspect of technology … you can’t just build an app. The platforms, whether it’s iOS, Windows, Android, or Mac OS, that’s where all the control is.”
Later at Thrive, Miller noticed something else. Companies like Figma, Notion, Airtable, or Superhuman weren’t building apps for mobile or desktop. They were building large-scale apps that supported web technologies. Their native apps were, in most cases, just wrappers around their web apps, plus a desktop icon.
Since then, Miller has become convinced that the next big platform will be the open web. The basic infrastructure is already in place, quality applications are emerging, and there are no tech giants imposing rules and taking huge commissions. All that is missing is a tool that would combine all this with user-friendliness and turn the open web into something more than just the individual components.
Of course, there's a reason this tool doesn't exist. Internet users typically use one of two browsers: the one that came with their device, or Google Chrome. Chrome has about two-thirds of the browser market and is growing, while its competitors have single-digit shares and most of them are losing ground. Many users complain about Chrome's performance issues and that Google is collecting their data, but Chrome remains the leader. Other browsers now use Chrome's underlying software, Chromium, and copy its interface because it's so familiar.
Miller and Harsh Agrawal co-founded The Browser Company in 2019. They had worked together before: in 2011 they founded Branch, which they sold to Facebook in 2014. Eventually, both left Facebook to pursue other endeavors: Agrawal founded several startups, Miller was the chief product officer at the White House under President Barack Obama, and then joined Thrive Capital as an investor.
Miller recalls that when he worked at the White House, his boss and chief digital officer, Jason Goldman, once said words he couldn’t forget: “Platforms have all the leverage. And if you care about the future iran number data of the internet, or the way we use our computers, or you want to fix some aspect of technology … you can’t just build an app. The platforms, whether it’s iOS, Windows, Android, or Mac OS, that’s where all the control is.”
Later at Thrive, Miller noticed something else. Companies like Figma, Notion, Airtable, or Superhuman weren’t building apps for mobile or desktop. They were building large-scale apps that supported web technologies. Their native apps were, in most cases, just wrappers around their web apps, plus a desktop icon.
Since then, Miller has become convinced that the next big platform will be the open web. The basic infrastructure is already in place, quality applications are emerging, and there are no tech giants imposing rules and taking huge commissions. All that is missing is a tool that would combine all this with user-friendliness and turn the open web into something more than just the individual components.
Of course, there's a reason this tool doesn't exist. Internet users typically use one of two browsers: the one that came with their device, or Google Chrome. Chrome has about two-thirds of the browser market and is growing, while its competitors have single-digit shares and most of them are losing ground. Many users complain about Chrome's performance issues and that Google is collecting their data, but Chrome remains the leader. Other browsers now use Chrome's underlying software, Chromium, and copy its interface because it's so familiar.