Disruption’s legacy
Martin Weller,
The Ed Techie,
Jan 28, 2020
The core idea of 'disruption' is this: existing companies over time spend more and more time and money building features for and supporting a minority (and often premium) portion of their client base, thus creating an opportunity for a new company without this overhead to come along and build a streamlined product serving the majority who don't need these special features and services. Hence, say, discount airlines. Because these companies are focused on lowering costs, they often underpaid staff, undercut unions, and flouted regulations. But all that is a product of capitalism, not disruption. All that is why I think Martin Weller's criticism of Christensen is not only a poorly-timed attack, it is also wrong. Christensen didn't undermine labour, conservative governments did. Christensen didn't undermine experience, the intransigence of incumbent companies did. Christensen didn't create monopoly economics, capitalism did.
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