The Innovator's Dilemma
When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Why doing everything right can still cost market leaders everything.
Clayton Christensen explains why well-managed, successful companies often fail when faced with disruptive technologies. Listening closely to their best customers and chasing higher margins, incumbents rationally ignore cheaper, lower-performing innovations that eventually overtake them. He introduces the distinction between sustaining and disruptive innovation and shows how disruptors capture new markets from below.
It is the canonical explanation of how startups beat dominant incumbents, which is exactly the position most founders are betting on. Understanding disruption helps founders find footholds in markets that big players cannot profitably defend.
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