Comments for Maxwell Elliot Wessel

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by Maxwell

Maxwell — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:56:05 +0000

I actually think this is a great observation. Generally speaking, I think the development of break technologies (see the Triggers of disruption) can only come from labs with resources. Business model innovation tends to come from start-ups, but doesn't have to come from those businesses.

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by David MC

David MC — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:52:17 +0000

I wonder is the point that disruptive technology i.e. "technology innovation" has come from the large labs in the past, and the "business innovation" that builds new really innovative product based on the new technology comes from start-ups?

Comment on Finding Gold in the Garbage by Alvis

Alvis — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:55:26 +0000

Great post! Interdependence and modularity are indeed lesser known theories but nonetheless provide a very robust framework to analyze industries. I've been thinking about the mobile phone industry through these lenses and it seems like the industry is very close to getting at the point where it will overshoot the mainstream customers with functionality that they don't seem to want to pay extra for (top smartphone prices, subsidized, have rarely hit above the $200 price level for years now). Chips, screens, UI and OS-es have become good enough that they can be assembled from various vendors and sold as modular products (i.e. Android and WP7 to some extent). This means that customization and time to market will be the new basis of competition in the industry. Even though the following might sound like a heresy, but the theory would suggest that iPhone's best days are behind and the army of Android vendors will dominate the game?
The other way to think about the industry is through the content&services value chain lense. Things do not seem to be good-enough yet from that perspective. If I switch from my iPhone to an Android phone, I will know I will suffer to transfer (and Apple does not make this easy) all my media and consume it effortlessly in another platform. This makes me think that the industry is still undershooting customers and interdependent systems have still plenty of room to grow while modular vendors (HTC, Samsung, Google) are still early to see real success…
Would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Comment on Idolize Bill Gates, Not Steve Jobs by red dave

red dave — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:25:58 +0000

If Bill gates had continued to head Microsoft would he have added more value to the world then he has as a philanthropist? Imagine every windows pc, copy of office and, more common windows phone were that little bit better that having Gates as CEO would make them. This would increase the value of Microsoft stock but also the amount of money and free time users of Microsoft products had. With all this increased productivity of many would more be done to help world poverty then Gates is doing at the moment by himself?

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by Marc

Marc — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:26:10 +0000

As someone who doesn't necessarily want to work for an early stage company, but feel like Paul Graham, etc. would look down on me for not doing so, I find this refreshing.

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by RMIC

RMIC — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:33:11 +0000

Great article.

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by Eugene Eric Kim

Eugene Eric Kim — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:15:03 +0000

It pains me to point this out, because I think your post is provocative, and your description of Kuhn's work is decent. But your leap from Kuhn's notion of a paradigm shift to Christensen's notion of disruptive innovation is a non sequitur. Kuhn's work was all about epistemology, his attempt to explain how we acquire scientific knowledge. In Kuhn's world, paradigm shifts happen when current worldviews are no longer adequate to explain natural phenomenon. Resistance is generally irrational, but acceptance isn't totally rational either.

Disruptive innovation is about changing market conditions. I think most people are pretty open to the idea that markets can and will change. Whether or not people invest in trying to change those markets in ways that are disruptive is also generally rational.

Frankly, I doubt that Kuhn would have tried to steer students away from startups and toward large research labs, but even if he would have, it would have had nothing to do with his notion of paradigm shifts.

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by Riku

Riku — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:13:58 +0000

The biggest steps forward by the example companies Apple and Google were done when they were still startups. Moreover, I would argue that the biggest impact Google is making now is with Android. Android is currently changing the world by allowing access to the internet to millions of new users. Android is a startup that Google bought. Startups often need large companies, but it doesn't mean that the startups are any less valuable.

I would also argue that software is actually where we can make huge leaps forward at the moment. Creating software that has the ability to predict and model the physical world is required for new findings. I don't think we should really be making a distinction between software and "the real world".

I do agree that most startups are chasing unimportant problems. It might however be that it's often required as a step towards more meaningful things.

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by Todd Dunn

Todd Dunn — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:30:35 +0000

My concern with encouraging innovative thinkers to possibly pursue large corporations is that disruptive innovation and large corporations don't seem to go together as well now as they did a number of years ago. Why? There seems to be an almost insurmountable incompatibility between innovation and large corporations' FP&A cycles. I think this article discusses this to some degree……the quarterly expectation management that CEO's seem to have to do today. http://strategyprofs.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/duly-noted-solving-the-principal-agent-problem-in-firmsthe-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

For corporations to attract innovative minds and people passionate for making a difference they must encourage experimentation and "budget" for such experiments.

In your writings you speak often of the "job to be done" and I believe companies need to train people in how to do the contextual inquiry, problem definition, ethnographic research, etc…that will enable the discovery of the "Job to be done" and then the processes for pushing those ideas through. This clearly will summons a new breed of leadership thinking.

Geoffrey West did a great job of extending Kleibers law to cities and corporations. The math clearly proves that large corporations should be more innovative and that leaders are sitting on top of the ultimate asset; employees' passion and knowledge. The math argues that large corporations should be more innovative and yet what we see is the lack of disruptive innovation. What the law misses is the cultural pieces that must be encouraged AND the virtual spaces being utilized within these corporations that enable the connections among employees of like skills, mindsets,ideas, etc…..I propose that large corporations CAN be incredibly innovative when they figure out the people, processes, and platforms to make disruptive innovation happen. It truly is a call to leaders to make it happen and to recognize and reward those who want to help make it happen!

Comment on Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation by Adrian Bye

Adrian Bye — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:07:03 +0000

awesome writing and i agree 100%. i could care less about learning to code, which seems to be the theme of today's startup community. larry ellison and steve jobs seem to have done ok