Disruptive Innovation

The signature framework of Clayton Christensen, the author of How Will You Measure Your Life. That book is Christensen’s applied-to-life work rather than his innovation theory — it takes business-strategy frameworks (resource allocation, jobs-to-be-done, the trap of short-term metrics) and turns them on personal direction — so the wiki’s grounding for “disruptive innovation” itself is currently the Christensen authorship link rather than a passage in the source. This page is a stub pending a source where Christensen’s disruption theory is directly discussed (e.g. The Innovator’s Dilemma).

Context: Disruptive innovation, the theory Christensen introduced in The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997), describes how a new entrant initially serves overlooked or low-end customers with a simpler, cheaper product, then improves until it displaces established incumbents — who rationally ignore the threat because it appears unprofitable in their core market. It is one of the most cited frameworks in modern business strategy.

Where this appears

• How Will You Measure Your Life — Christensen’s life-strategy book; the concept is associated via his authorship (the book applies his strategy frameworks to personal life rather than expounding disruption theory itself)
• How Will You Measure Your Life (HBR, 2010): the Harvard Business Review article (July–August 2010) that became the book. It opens with a direct account of disruption theory: Christensen explains it to Andy Grove through steel minimills (Nucor) moving up from rebar, and Grove arrives at Intel’s low-end Celeron strategy. The article also lists “disruptive innovation” among the business frameworks that “clarity about their purpose will trump.” Saved to Kyle’s Apple Note “Things To Internet” (c. 2013–2015).