
The Disruption Machine: What the gospel of innovation gets wrong (2014) - makmanalp
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine
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mpdehaan2
I think there's a significant problem in SV culture that says you must disrupt
all of the time, and that forming a stable business is not a goal.

Silicon Valley (the show) pretty much nailed this on a regular basis when
shoddy-investor-guy warns against making money because you'll be worth less
money because people know how much money you can make.

It's totally reasonable to eat a market while it exists, and then find a new
market later -- or even decide that the shrinking market is actually ok, and
you're content with your share of that market.

Unless you're the VC -- because you have a VERY high risk fund (almost by
definition) and you'd like only 10-30% success but with 100x profits on those
30%.

This leads lots of tech companies to flame out, overstress, and build things
people don't need, because the sane, logical ideas are the ones that are
harder to find investment for (if they can't bootstrap them).

It's a weird space.

~~~
tyre
We're building a CRM for local governments
([http://romulusapp.com](http://romulusapp.com)) and have absolutely found
this to be the case. Investors are not only terrified by government, but
consistently talk about things like blockchains and GoPro + drones as things
they are more interested in.

I'm all for experimentation, but it has been surreal to see the discount for
solving an actual problem despite a massive market opportunity, little
competition, and clear customer need + willingness to pay.

~~~
shadowfox
Off topic. Got to say that you have got quite an interesting system there.

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calcsam
Clayton Christiansen's response:
[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-06-20/clayton-
chri...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-06-20/clayton-christensen-
responds-to-new-yorker-takedown-of-disruptive-innovation)

~~~
kansface
| [Disruption] has never happened in the hotel industry, for example.

Clayton should try out AirBnB. An interesting article, though I found his use
of the third person confusing/odd.

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nradov
While the article is kind of weak and too long, the essential criticism is
that Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation isn't a scientific
"theory". It doesn't really make testable predictions and it's not
falsifiable. There are too many confounding factors and no practical way to
run a controlled experiment. (Much of modern economics has the same problem.)

But I still love Christensen's books for the way they provide a framework for
discussing business strategy.

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ThomPete
As always in these disputes perspectives are fought about as if they are
facts.

Clayton Christensens theory provides a perspective, a lense to understand
large parts of how the business world works. Of course there are all sorts of
exceptions but that doesn't disprove the overall theory it just shows there
are other ways to look at it too.

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gooseus
Well, I liked it... though I got the feeling I had read this before. Then I
saw it was from a year ago and garnered almost no attention here back then.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8153457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8153457)

Are we not talking about this because it's not relevant, or because everyone
here is so invested in this disruption movement?

TL;DR: Read Nassim Nicolas Taleb, he has a lot to say on the likelihood and
impact of highly improbably events (Black Swans)... like the successful of
highly innovative products. Everything I say next is a rambling couching of
the ideas of this article into his framework with the hope that someone else
will engage with it.

Personally, I think the key point is here:

"Companies that were quick to release a new product but not skilled at
tinkering have tended to flame out."

Which reminds me of the NNT's barbell approach to mitigating Black Swan's.
Invest the majority of your energy conservatively in safe, non-risky ventures
and then spread the rest of your energy across high-risk ventures (tinkering)
with extremely high (or unlimited) potential upsides.

New technology has allowed the creation of many more Black Swans for
businesses through innovation and they can be positive or negative depending
on whether you are the disrupting company or the one being disrupted by this
new innovation Black Swan.

Established companies that don't tinker, don't expose themselves to positive
innovation Black Swans... while startups that ignore all established wisdom
gambling on a single Black Swan innovation expose themselves to the reality
that 9/10 innovations don't actually result in Black Swan level disruption.

For those that don't know what I'm talking about, I definitely recommend
Nassim Nicolas Taleb's The Black Swan and Antifragile:

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Fragility-
eb...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Fragility-
ebook/dp/B00139XTG4/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-
Incer...](http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Incerto-
ebook/dp/B0083DJWGO/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1)

</rambling>

~~~
moyix
There was actually a more lively thread about it last year:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7901612](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7901612)

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jackgavigan
I can see this being reposted annually for the foreseeable future. Perhaps I
should set up an IFTTT recipe to post this excellent rebuttal every time it
appears on Hacker News:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/06/30...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/06/30/what-
jill-lepore-gets-wrong-about-clayton-christensen-and-disruptive-innovation/)

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NHQ
I would call this is a pretty good take down of the religion of disruption.

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state
Could perhaps use a (2014).

~~~
sctb
Thanks, updated.

