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I'd be more interested in Steve Jobs' favorite business books. I know he was a huge fan of the Innovator's Dilemma, probably because he already naturally unders

I'd be more interested in Steve Jobs' favorite business books. I know he was a huge fan of the Innovator's Dilemma, probably because he already naturally understood most of it from experience before having to read it, and he was probably fan of other similar books too, and I'd like to know which books those were. I don't think Bill Gates ever understood a book like Innovator's Dilemma. Not really.

stillsut 12y ago
Check out the Innovator's Solution, the follow up. It explains why most of the profit (ability to charge your costs plus a premium) was dominated in the 90's by OS's, and not by the now notorious disk-drive companies. Gates probably understood this (how to position yourself not be disrupted) and it's why we're all reading his favorite book - which is great by the way.
- dumbarton 12y ago
  And for the other side of the coin -- Jill Lepore's "What the Theory of Disruptive Innovation Gets Wrong" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/23/140623fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/23/140623fa_fact_...
  - davidw 12y ago
    And the response to that: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-20/clayton-christensen-responds-to-new-yorker-takedown-of-disruptive-innovation http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-20/clayton-chri...
  - mtdewcmu 12y ago
    I haven't read Christensen's books, but the story Jill Lepore tells in that article sounds totally credible. Disruptive innovation is a theory of history. Given any historical event with winners and losers, it reframes it as a contest between innovator and non-innovator with a preordained outcome. Microsoft succeeded and Xerox failed because PCs were the inevitable future, which Microsoft embraced and Xerox denied. Xerox should have seen that the PC was inevitable and planned accordingly, the theory says. However, there is a problem when trying to apply the theory in real time, as Lepore points out: "Disruptive innovation can reliably be seen only after the fact." She explains the theory's circularity: "Christensen has compared the theory of disruptive innovation to a theory of nature: the theory of evolution. But... advocates of disruption have an affinity for circular arguments. If an established company doesn’t disrupt, it will fail, and if it fails it must be because it didn’t disrupt. When a startup fails, that’s a success, since epidemic failure is a hallmark of disruptive innovation. ... When an established company succeeds, that’s only because it hasn’t yet failed. And, when any of these things happen, all of them are only further evidence of disruption." It works well only in retrospect, and it can't be disproven. Like all theories of history, it only explains things that have already happened.
  - tmbsundar 12y ago
    Thomas Thurston in his TechCrunch article "Christensen Vs. Lepore: A Matter Of Fact": http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/christensen-vs-lepore-a-matter-of-fact/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/christensen-vs-lepore-a-mat...
george88b 12y ago
What makes you think he didn't understand the Innovator's Dilemma? When he was CEO some of the more innovative products not part of their core business included smart watches, internet TV (MSN TV), the XBox, and many others. Granted some were way ahead of their time, and I would agree to saying Ballmer didn't understand, but I wouldn't say Gates didn't.
tim333 12y ago
>I don't think Bill Gates ever understood a book like Innovator's Dilemma. Not really. Bill's taking advantage of IBM's focus on their mainframe customers and under cutting them with Windows pcs seems almost the classic example of the things the Innovator's Dilemma is on about and probably the biggest one in history in dollar value terms. I suspect he understands that stuff.

stillsut 12y ago

Check out the Innovator's Solution, the follow up. It explains why most of the profit (ability to charge your costs plus a premium) was dominated in the 90's by OS's, and not by the now notorious disk-drive companies. Gates probably understood this (how to position yourself not be disrupted) and it's why we're all reading his favorite book - which is great by the way.

dumbarton 12y ago
And for the other side of the coin -- Jill Lepore's "What the Theory of Disruptive Innovation Gets Wrong" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/23/140623fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/23/140623fa_fact_...
- davidw 12y ago
  And the response to that: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-20/clayton-christensen-responds-to-new-yorker-takedown-of-disruptive-innovation http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-20/clayton-chri...
- mtdewcmu 12y ago
  I haven't read Christensen's books, but the story Jill Lepore tells in that article sounds totally credible. Disruptive innovation is a theory of history. Given any historical event with winners and losers, it reframes it as a contest between innovator and non-innovator with a preordained outcome. Microsoft succeeded and Xerox failed because PCs were the inevitable future, which Microsoft embraced and Xerox denied. Xerox should have seen that the PC was inevitable and planned accordingly, the theory says. However, there is a problem when trying to apply the theory in real time, as Lepore points out: "Disruptive innovation can reliably be seen only after the fact." She explains the theory's circularity: "Christensen has compared the theory of disruptive innovation to a theory of nature: the theory of evolution. But... advocates of disruption have an affinity for circular arguments. If an established company doesn’t disrupt, it will fail, and if it fails it must be because it didn’t disrupt. When a startup fails, that’s a success, since epidemic failure is a hallmark of disruptive innovation. ... When an established company succeeds, that’s only because it hasn’t yet failed. And, when any of these things happen, all of them are only further evidence of disruption." It works well only in retrospect, and it can't be disproven. Like all theories of history, it only explains things that have already happened.
- tmbsundar 12y ago
  Thomas Thurston in his TechCrunch article "Christensen Vs. Lepore: A Matter Of Fact": http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/christensen-vs-lepore-a-matter-of-fact/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/christensen-vs-lepore-a-mat...

george88b 12y ago

What makes you think he didn't understand the Innovator's Dilemma? When he was CEO some of the more innovative products not part of their core business included smart watches, internet TV (MSN TV), the XBox, and many others. Granted some were way ahead of their time, and I would agree to saying Ballmer didn't understand, but I wouldn't say Gates didn't.

tim333 12y ago

>I don't think Bill Gates ever understood a book like Innovator's Dilemma. Not really. Bill's taking advantage of IBM's focus on their mainframe customers and under cutting them with Windows pcs seems almost the classic example of the things the Innovator's Dilemma is on about and probably the biggest one in history in dollar value terms. I suspect he understands that stuff.