Larry Chiang’s shorthand for External API is a title swap: change one word, Harvard to Stanford, and the format is yours. He is talking about his own book, a rewrite of What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School aimed at his own path instead. The point is not plagiarism, it is proof that a proven structure can carry a new name and still work.
Larry’s mentor Mark McCormack built IMG on this same instinct, taking a format that worked and running it again in a new room. The External API move has two forms: copy a proven format and change one element, or plug your hustle into someone else’s distribution. Changing one word is the first form, and it is the cheapest test you can run before you build anything from scratch.
Larry’s line is DJ two things that exist, which is another way of saying combine, don’t invent. The franchise version of this shows up city to city too, the same night out, the same event format, moved somewhere new with no fees owed.
Larry calls this a sequel, not a copy, because the work of proving the format already happened somewhere else. Before touching the one word, Larry’s rule is sell it first, then go make it, so you are not building on a guess.
The test is not whether it is original, the test is whether someone already paid for a version of it. If they did, the one word you change is the only work left before it is yours to run.
Details: Watch Larry explain the swap
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