Please explain in detail the first force of the "Triple Convergence": The ten flatteners creating a new, flatter playing field.

Okay, let's talk about the first element of the "Triple Convergence" that Thomas Friedman discusses in The World Is Flat. I'll try to break it down in plain language.

---

The Ten Steamrollers: Ten Forces That Flattened the World

Imagine the global economic landscape about 30 years ago like a complex terrain with high mountains, deep valleys, and hills. If you were born in a "mountaintop" country like the US or Western Europe, you had enormous inherent advantages—the best education, abundant capital, and the most advanced technology. But if you were born in a "lowland" or "hilly" country like India, China, or Eastern Europe, trying to climb to the top and compete with them seemed nearly impossible.

The concept of the "Ten Steamrollers" describes ten powerful forces that emerged, starting from the late 1980s. These forces acted like ten giant steamrollers, working together at full throttle to gradually flatten this uneven world. When this process was largely complete, a new, relatively level competitive platform was born. On this new platform, wherever you are located, as long as you have talent and internet access, your opportunity to participate in global competition significantly increased.

This is the first foundation of the "Triple Convergence": The creation of a new platform. Now, let's look at what these ten "Steamrollers" specifically are and how they worked together.

Phase 1: Tearing Down Walls, Connecting the World (Steamrollers 1-3)

These steamrollers laid the most critical groundwork for "flattening the world."

1. The Fall of the Berlin Wall (Nov 9, 1989) & The Rise of Windows

   • Plain language explanation: This wasn't just a political event; it was more like an ideological "switch." It signaled to the world: "Hey, the Cold War game is over; we're all playing on the same field now!" This led people to start viewing the world through a "globalized" lens. Concurrently, the widespread adoption of the Windows operating system made computers easily accessible to ordinary people, paving the way for everything that followed. Think of it as building the playing field and getting players and spectators onto it.

2. The Netscape IPO (Aug 9, 1995) & The Rise of the Internet

   • Plain language explanation: This was the true "tipping point." Before the Netscape browser, accessing the internet was reserved for tech-savvy individuals requiring complex code. Netscape made it easy – simply "point and click." This directly fueled the dot-com bubble. While the bubble burst, it left behind a global network of fiber optic cables—the "pavement" of the information superhighway—enabling data to be transmitted globally at incredibly low cost and speed.

3. Workflow Software

   • Plain language explanation: This sounds technical but is actually quite simple to grasp. It refers to software that allows different computers across different companies to "speak the same language." For example, when you place an order on Taobao, your payment information (via Alipay) seamlessly informs the seller (the Taobao merchant). The seller's system then automatically notifies the warehouse (Cainiao Network), which instructs the courier company (SF Express, YTO) to pick up the package. The smooth operation of this entire process relies on various workflow software. It made global collaboration as easy as working in the same office.

Phase 2: New Rules, New Ways to Play (Steamrollers 4-8)

With the platform built, people began creating new business models on top of it.

4. Open-Sourcing

   • Plain language explanation: This is about thousands of programmers spontaneously collaborating via the internet to jointly develop free software, such as the Linux operating system and Apache web servers. It's like the smartest people worldwide forming a "free R&D team." Their outputs (code) are public; anyone can use, modify, and improve them. This drastically reduced the cost of innovation.

5. Outsourcing

   • Plain language explanation: An American company discovers that Indian accountants are both professional and affordable, so they "outsource" their entire financial bookkeeping function to an Indian company. Outsourcing allows companies to focus on their core competencies while handing non-core tasks over to specialized teams globally that offer the best value.

6. Offshoring

   • Plain language explanation: This goes a step beyond outsourcing. Outsourcing hands off "a task"; offshoring moves "the entire factory" overseas. For instance, an American company might build a complete production base in China or Vietnam, leveraging local labor cost advantages to manufacture products sold worldwide. Many familiar "Made in China" goods originated this way.

7. Supply-Chaining

   • Plain language explanation: This is the art of maximizing efficiency. Walmart is the prime example. Using a highly precise system, it can track the sales and inventory of any item in any of its global stores in real-time. If Coke is running low on a shelf, the system automatically notifies the Coca-Cola factory to replenish it. This achieves near-zero inventory and minimizes costs throughout the entire chain, from the production line to the consumer, with astonishing efficiency.

8. Insourcing

   • Plain language explanation: This is a bit counterintuitive but fascinating. Say your Toshiba laptop breaks, and you take it to a UPS store. You might think UPS just ships packages? Actually, UPS staff will often repair your laptop right in the store before shipping it back to you. Here, UPS is "going deep" into Toshiba's internal business process (after-sales repair). This is insourcing—one company "taking over" an internal operational process of another company.

Phase 3: Empowering the Individuals (Steamrollers 9-10)

The final two steamrollers equipped every individual on the platform with a "super engine."

9. In-forming

   • Plain language explanation: Simply put, this is search engines like Google and Baidu. They gave individuals unprecedented access to information. You can find any knowledge, compare any product price, or locate any expert within seconds. This significantly leveled the "information gap" between individuals, turning everyone into their own "researcher" and "information analyst."

10. The Steroids

    • Plain language explanation: This isn't one thing, but a set of technologies that supercharged and accelerated the previous nine forces. Examples include: Wireless networks, Smartphones, VoIP (Voice over IP, like WeChat voice calls). They made everything mobile, enabling it to happen anytime, anywhere. You can conference with a global team from a café using your phone or process orders while traveling. They injected steroids into the entire "flat world," exponentially increasing the speed of collaboration and competition.

---

In Summary:

The first element of the "Triple Convergence" is that these ten "steamrollers" emerged roughly simultaneously (around 1990-2000), reinforcing and amplifying each other. They weren't isolated events but, like a chemical reaction, collectively created an unprecedented global competitive platform.

• The Fall of the Berlin Wall opened the ideological door.
• The Internet and browsers paved the information superhighway.
• Workflow software established the rules for global collaboration.
• Outsourcing, Offshoring, Supply-Chaining, and other new models enabled capital and work to flow freely globally, seeking the most efficient locations.
• Open-Sourcing and Search Engines put powerful tools and knowledge into the hands of every ordinary person.
• Finally, Wireless/mobile technology accelerated it all into overdrive.

It was the creation of this platform that made the next two forms of "convergence" possible – namely, people learning how to compete using this platform, and more people worldwide joining the platform. Therefore, these "Ten Steamrollers" are the very foundation of "the world is flat."