"There's a new economic paradigm that's happening, that's changing the way we build businesses," Chase said. "Individuals can do things that big entities hate doing."

Zipcar leveraged its customers to have them do many of the things rental car companies used to do, from inspecting the vehicles for damage to refilling the gas tanks once they got under ¼ tank. Zipcar also took advantage of the internet to make borrowing a car simple, which Chase said was vital for customer participation given that the rentals are often for a very short period of time.

In the mobile world, Chase considers smartphones themselves to be the platform while the applications are the work of peers or customers. This collaborative model has unleashed rapid innovation, Chase said, with some two million apps created since 2009.

Airbnb also experienced stratospheric growth by diving headfirst into the sharing economy, aggregating more room rentals than any hotel chain in the world in just four years. Within six months of Barack Obama reestablishing relations with Cuba, Airbnb already had 2,000 rooms for rent on the island nation, a rate of development that would have simply been impossible if the rooms had to be built from scratch.

"We really believe we're co-creators today," Chase said. "Without us involved, these companies are nothing."