The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
by Clayton M. Christensen
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81:05
Author presents live at Google with slides plus Q&A
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Spoiler:
The author explains that marketing is mistaken in looking at the demographics of a customer, and that what should be considered is what is the job that the customer wants to get done? He gives the example of a McDonald’s milkshake, which he and his Harvard Business School colleagues discovered is often “hired” to do the job of accompanying somebody on their commute. Therefore, the McDonald’s milkshake is not competing so much against Burger King milkshakes, but rather against bananas and donuts and other things that could be hired to do the same job.
20:06
Author presents live with slides to describe 3 types of innovations
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Mar, 2016
Spoiler:
The author describes three types of innovations. First, “disruptive innovations” make products accessible (think cars and computers). Disruptive innovations create growth and jobs. The second type, “sustaining innovations,” makes good products better. He says that most of the innovations we see are this type but while they improve margins, they create little net growth. The third type is “efficiency innovations,” the purpose of which is “to make more with less.” Efficiency innovations, by their nature, eliminate jobs.
14:21
Author gives live interview to Andrew Keen about growth
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Apr, 2012
Spoiler:
The author says the puzzle he was trying to solve is: how is it that even the most intelligent CEOs and the best companies find success so hard to sustain? He concluded that there is an innovator’s dilemma, that “doing the right thing will kill you.” He uses IBM as an example of a company that survived by developing different business models for different sectors of its production, making its mainframes in Poughkeepsie, NY and its mini computers in Rochester, MN. The other 8 companies that had been making mainframes failed.
6:38
Animated summary of “business classic” from Four Minute Books
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Sep, 2022
Spoiler:
Noting that Steve Jobs said The Innovator’s Dilemma had deeply influenced him, the video offers three lessons from the book. One, there are two kinds of technologies: disruptive and sustaining. Two, if a company’s resources, processes and values don’t match the market, no management can save it. And three, market leaders can solve the innovator’s dilemma by acquiring or founding subsidiaries. That is, it’s almost impossible to develop both sustaining and disruptive technologies from one source. This third factor can make up for the first two.
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Other books by Clayton M. Christensen
Publications
The Guardian: Clayton M Christensen's theory of 'disruption' has been debunked. Can we all move on now, please?
The Washington Post: What the legendary Clayton Christensen gets wrong about Uber, Tesla and disruptive innovation
Forbes: Clay Christensen’s Lasting Impact On How We Think About Innovation
The New Yorker: The Disruption Machine
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