Where Does Growth Come From? | Clayton Christensen | Talks at Google

Clayton Christensen argues here [1] that Tesla is going to have a problem with BMW etc. - he says that it has been easier in the past to disrupt existing markets from the low end and with low margin products; the field of high margin cars has a lot of sophisticated players that might give Tesla considerable trouble in the long run - on the high end. Fascinating and very enjoyable talk: [1] [VIDEO]

> ... But "why" is still a good question, and it remains unanswered Mr. Clayton Christensen says its because adults like to invest their effort in stuff that gives them the most immediate sense of achievement - and that turns out to be their careers; spending your time with the kids (or doing other thing that might make more sense) doesn't give you this kick, often its a long term investment that gets neglected. He says so in this video [VIDEO] (answering a question asked at 1:15:08). i keep quoting this guy quite a lot recently...

Strongly suggest to read about "Jobs to be done" framework, by Clayton Christensen (video [1]; starts @ 12:00). I bet you the job to be done in your case is not " VR simulations for first respondents ", but something much more powerful, like giving first respondents the hands-on practice they need to save lives. The VR part is a characteristic of your product, but not what your customers are trying to solve for. [1] [VIDEO]

How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen [LINK] I always feel uneasy with the notion of work-life balance. At the same time I always want more time and attention with my family. Family is part of life, work is part of life, everything you do is part of life. Why the two often appear to be opposing each other? The book offers much counsel on family, parenting and profession. Many of the business examples appeared in the book Innovation Dilemma and a talk at google [VIDEO]

Reminds me of Clayton Christensen's talk at Google or argument in this article. "Because they were taught to believe that the efficiency of capital was a virtue, financiers began measuring profitability not as dollars, yen, or yuan, but as ratios like RONA (return on net assets), ROIC (return on invested capital), and IRR (internal rate of return)... All of this makes market-creating innovations appear less attractive as investments. Typically, they bear fruit only after five to 10 years; in contrast, efficiency innovations typically pay off within a year or two. What’s worse, growing market-creating innovations to scale uses capital, which must often be put onto the balance sheet. Efficiency innovations take capital off the balance sheet, however. To top it off, efficiency innovations almost always seem to entail less risk than market-creating ones, because a market for them already exists." [LINK] [VIDEO]

I don't really think this is a well thought out position. I suspect the author is succumbing to some combination of survivorship bias and not being introspective about their methods or conditions of when their methods are successful. The article talks about these things in a roundabout way but doesn't seem to address the core issue. Yes, there's gold in the "no trespassing" hills, but any startup that does succeed in going that route is often blind to the legion of failed startups before it, in addition to being blind of what conditions have changed to then allow them to overtake the monopoly at the point in time they were successful. The way to attack monopolies is often obliquely. One method is to serve a market that they don't want to serve because the margins aren't good and they prioritize short term rate of return. The monopoly isn't only not serving that market, they're often happy when they can outsource that part, removing the cost of their balance sheet to then focus on the higher end and higher rate of return products. Eventually this is done for every service and the competitors eat the ladder from the bottom up, overtaking the monopoly on their high end services. This is my interpretation of what Christensen is talking about in his "Where Does Growth Come From?" talks [0]. The other way is to serve an adjacent need, often creating their own market, and then overtaking the monopoly. I would like to see a more introspective analysis of startups overtaking monopolie