Comments on: Bottom-Up Thinker: Clayton M. Christensen

By: Bill Harshaw

Bill Harshaw — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:15:10 +0000

As I remember the book, “complex technology is replaced by a simpler, cheaper technology” is a little misleading. The “replacement” often isn’t total; the old-line technology and builders end up in niche markets/uses. And usually the innovation develops an entirely new class of customers and uses in addition to mostly replacing the old. IBM still sells a few mainframes, just as Dell is still selling some desktop PC’s.

By: Timothy B Lee

Timothy B Lee — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:46:18 +0000

Scott, it’s important to understand that Christensen had a very specific definition for “disruptive innovation.” It’s not just a generic term for technological progress. It specifically describes a situation in which an expensive, complex technology is replaced by a simpler, cheaper technology. So the atom bomb, for example, was not a disruptive technology as he defined it, since it was neither cheaper nor simpler than conventional weapons. So your examples don’t disprove Christensen’s thesis as he defined it.

Nick, the comparative advantage of disruptive technologies is often that they’re simply much cheaper than older technologies. In the long run, they often improve and displace the older technologies, but at the outset they’re often adopted by people who couldn’t afford the earlier technology.

By: Nick T

Nick T — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:01:27 +0000

Scott, I am not sure how you define “vastly superior”, but the initial introduction of the ME262 was not an unqualified success. You can even argue that, in terms of military requirements and procurement, it did more to damage the Luftwaffe than to benefit it. There’s no doubt that the ME 262 took resources from established, and successful, production lines, absorbed materials and technical personnel, and returned relatively little on the investment in terms of actual performance. How does this equate to “vastly superior”?
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As for the thesis overall – it seems plausible that a disruptive technology would be generally inferior at its inception, given that all prototypes and first generation products have teething troubles, and are often not helped by being rushed into production as rapidly as possible. However, surely disruptive technologies must have, or seem to promise, a comparative advantage in some significant area. Otherwise, you’d be looking at another of the “seemed like a good idea at the time” one-minute wonders.

By: Scott Locklin

Scott Locklin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:17:26 +0000

I haven’t read the book, and probably won’t if the author thinks “disruptive innovations” always start off inferior to established ones. Atom bombs, the SR-71, the Me262, steam engines, Xerox machines, IC’s versus circuits: most disruptive innovations, in fact, start off vastly superior to established ones. Duh.

It is an excellent point about organizations, however. You can see this effect most clearly in the National Lab system and NASA, which as far as I can tell, is more or less not worth what we spend on it because they’re all oriented towards technologies and practices of the 1950s.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:01:54 +0000

A friend passed on Rubin’s “The Myth of Accountability” paper recently… a very fascinating look at things related to top-down, bottom-up stuff. Have you read that? Might be a good reading for the policy reading group when school starts…

By: Martin Weiss

Martin Weiss — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:49:57 +0000

While organizational inflexibility is certainly a lesson for this book, I think that the issue of incentives and payoffs are key. As Christiansen points out (and I don’t have my copy handy at the moment) a small company with a disruptive technology values small contracts far more than a company in an established market. Thus, they are likely to innovate to win these whereas it doesn’t matter to a large company in an established market. What comes to mind, actually, is Leavitt’s discussion of real estate commissions in “Freakonomics”.

To me, one of the lessons of ID was that established companies could do little to avert disruption short of creating a “skunk works” like independent division that was organizationally (and perhaps also geographically) removed from the powerful profit centers. HP and inkjets comes to mind.