Gorilla, Chimp, Monkey

The gorilla-chimp-monkey framework, developed in Inside the Tornado (1995) and expanded in The Gorilla Game (1998), describes the market structure that emerges once a tornado subsides. The gorilla establishes de facto standard status and captures disproportionate market share, pricing power, and ecosystem gravity. Chimps are viable competitors who hold smaller but meaningful positions, typically constrained to offerings that differentiate from the gorilla's standard. Monkeys are niche players serving segments the gorilla does not address. The framework predicts both the competitive dynamics during the tornado (each company fighting for gorilla position) and the equilibrium after (gorilla captures most value, chimps survive, monkeys differentiate). In the AI developer tools tornado of 2025–2026, the gorilla contest among Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google has been actively contested.