The only companies or products that will succeed now are the ones offering the lowest possible level of complexity for the maximum amount of value.

A fascinating trend is consuming Silicon Valley and beginning to eat away at rest of the world: the radical simplification of everything.

Want to spot the next great technology or business opportunity? Just look for any market that lacks a minimally complex solution to a sufficiently large problem.

Take book publishing, for instance. Or website hosting. Jeff Bezos put these and other industries on notice in his annual shareholder letter, which included a self-service rallying cry against gatekeepers that perpetuate complexity and block innovation. After all, what could be simpler than provisioning servers in seconds with just a credit card and an API? But this call extends beyond Amazon’s empire to all ecosystems and products.

Any market where unnecessary middlemen stand between customers and their successful use of a solution is about to be disrupted. Any service putting the burden on end users to string together multiple applications to produce the final working solution should consider its days numbered. Any product with an interface that slows people down is ripe for extinction. And any category where a disproportionate number of customers are subsidizing their vendor’s inefficiency is on the verge of revolution.

Ultimately, any market that doesn't have a leader in simplicity soon will. And if your company doesn’t play that role, another will lead the charge......