You do realize that the example of the hard disk industry in The Innovator's Dilemma is actually one of the weakest in the book: "In fact, Seagate Technology w

You do realize that the example of the hard disk industry in The Innovator's Dilemma is actually one of the weakest in the book: "In fact, Seagate Technology was not felled by disruption. Between 1989 and 1990, its sales doubled, reaching $2.4 billion, “more than all of its U.S. competitors combined,” according to an industry report. In 1997, the year Christensen published “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” Seagate was the largest company in the disk-drive industry, reporting revenues of nine billion dollars." and: "Between 1982 and 1984, Micropolis made the disruptive leap from eight-inch to 5.25-inch drives through what Christensen credits as the “Herculean managerial effort” of its C.E.O., Stuart Mahon. (“Mahon remembers the experience as the most exhausting of his life,” Christensen writes.) But, shortly thereafter, Micropolis, unable to compete with companies like Seagate, failed." Note that he published his book long after this stuff had been shown to be hopelessly wrong, without making any corrections. Many of his examples are similarly terrible. And those are the ones he cherry-picks to back his thesis. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-... I found The Innovator's Dilemma to be infuriating. It's a classic 20/20 hindsight -- just vague enough to apply to everything but excuse itself from any conspicuous counter-examples (Apple, say). Like most management fads, I guess. (Prediction: wait until electric, self-driving car tech becomes practical. Ford and GM will crush the "nimble" disruptors like bugs. Well, unless it's Apple. Then all bets are off.) Now, the hard disk makers may well be going under, but let's set aside Clay Christensen's over-rated terminology. Samsung is hardly a small startup "disrupting" big, slow stalwarts. Samsung dwarfs the hard disk makers -- it's more like Google "disrupting" libraries, or Walmart "disrupting" local businesses. BTW in Christensen's terms, this new disk is a "sustaining" innovation -- it's a better, faster, more complicated, harder-to-manufacture iteration of an existing, successful product.