The recent debate over 'disruption theory' has focussed on the over-use of the word 'disruption' and also on whether it can be used to predict the fate of incumbents in various industries. Somewhat lost in that discussion is precisely what disruption means for start-ups. There has been a tendency to think that start-ups should have …
Tanium will make money without disrupting anything
After a weeklong re-examination of disruption theory, out of the blue comes a new venture, Tanium, that received $90 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz meaning that they, at least, value it in the billions. Contrary to what many people think, billion dollar companies don't just appear out of no-where everyday. For that reason, I thought …
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The Informational Content of a 'Yo'
Yesterday, a new app, Yo, took my Twitter stream and life by storm. It does nothing more than send of receive the message 'Yo' from people on your Yo network. For explanation, you can read here, for backstory here and for its $1m financing round, here. I've installed it and I have been sending and …
A quick remark on Amazon's Fire Phone
Amazon announced its own phone today -- the Fire Phone. The primary question is: why? Tim B. Lee offers a Voxplainer on it and argues that it is to give Bezos an option: Creating its own smartphone gives Amazon a kind of insurance policy. If customers ever have trouble getting Amazon content on third-party platforms, …
The easy target that is the Theory of Disruptive Innovation
It is not everyday that there is a long New Yorker article sitting squarely in my field -- innovation strategy. But this week we have one by Jill Lepore who conducts a systematic 'take down' of Clay Christensen. For those of you who have read Christensen's work and found his cases convincing, Lepore pulls them …
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10 Reasons to doubt Tim's Vermeer
Two days ago I sat down with my family to watch Tim’s Vermeer. This is a wonderful documentary directed by Penn and Teller about technology entrepreneur, Tim Jenison’s, attempt to replicate Vermeer’s style. The hook was that he wasn’t an oil painter but a computer graphics guy who was able to build a contraption and paint …
Intellectual Property Strategy as PR
My colleague, Alberto Galasso has a post at HBR on whether Apple's patent wars are a PR rather than a legal strategy. The first one is the marketing effect of IP litigation. “Apple says Samsung copied iPhone” was the typical news headline during the first weeks of litigation. The case was not only mentioned on specialized …
How to compete with a non-existent iWatch
While seemingly not quite at the Paul Revere level of accuracy, “the iWatch is coming” has been a cry heard throughout the tech world for the last few years. There is a sense that this year might be The Year just like 2007 was finally The Year for the iPhone. This time, however, competitors have …
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Harvard Business School and the Online Threat
The title of this post reads like the title of a typical Harvard Business School (HBS) case. Actually, if I wrote "Harvard Business School and the Online Threat (A)" that would be more appropriate. But while I toyed with the idea of writing this in that style, for example: Professor Clay Christensen …
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Apple and the re-design of coding
Coding is all the rage. Many are arguing it is an essential skill for the modern economy. They believe it should be an essential part of the school curriculum. Fundamentally, what is being asked in coding is a very difficult exercise requiring skill development that has applicability well beyond coding. These skills are familar to those who do …
Digitopoly 