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Didn't Innovator's Dilemma cover this? The cable shovel customers said, "Ya, bigger shovels! Screw tiny hydraulics!" All the while hydrolics kept getting better

• marcosdumay 11y ago
  Well, no. Innovator's Dilemma is about successful products, not failures. The cable shovels were very successful, until they suddenly stopped being.
  • Animats 11y ago
    The problem there, which The Innovator's Dilemma didn't cover, is that seals were a huge problem for hydraulics until the invention of Neoprene synthetic rubber around 1930. Until then, hydraulics always leaked. Somebody built a hydraulic excavator around 1880, but that was a dead end. Success didn't come until 1948 or so. Pumps, valves, and hydraulic cylinders that don't leak are a post-WWII technology. Natural rubber doesn't tolerate oil. All the alternative to it (cloth packing, oiled leather, etc.) are worse, and hopeless at high pressures. This is an example of something that just doesn't work with natural materials.
    • jacquesm 11y ago
      Many things are like that. Tiny little steps in materials science suddenly enable a whole new field to come into play. It would be interesting to see a breakdown for many items that we take for granted to the key materials science breakthroughs that enable their functioning.
    • paulajohnson 11y ago
      While this is likely true it doesn't detract from Christensen's point, which is that the steam shovel companies went out of business because they couldn't switch. The steam shovel companies saw hydraulics as toys, or a sideline, or as sweeteners to throw in with a big steam shovel contract. They didn't understand how to exploit hydraulics when they finally developed enough to move earth by the ton more cheaply than large steam shovels.