September 26, 2025 • 21 mins
Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation explains why great companies fail by doing everything right and has found applications far beyond business into military strategy, religion, and personal development. His framework provides a universal pattern that brings clarity to complex problems, creating a common language that helps people reach consensus quickly, even in seemingly unrelated fields.
• The Pentagon applied Christensen's theory to terrorism, viewing the U.S. Department of Defense as the incumbent and non-nation states like Al-Qaeda as disruptors
• Disruptive innovations typically start as simpler, cheaper alternatives that improve over time and eventually displace established players
• Christensen showed emotional vulnerability when discussing critics who misunderstood his theory, particularly a critical New Yorker article
• He used a powerful metaphor comparing heaven to a warehouse of truths and insights that God can only distribute when humans ask questions
• The conversation explores how religion, journalism, and AI all follow patterns of disruption
• Disruption theory applies not just to business models but to personal lives and social structures
• The most powerful ideas can be applied universally, not just in specific domains
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs raised his hand and
he said, You're clueless aboutwhy we're interested.
And I said, I'm clueless.
And he said, What you call sheetsteel, for us, we call that
Russians.
And what you call the integratedsteel companies, we call that
the U.S.
Department of Defense.
And what you call mini-mills, wecall non-nation nations like
(00:24):
Al-Qaeda.
And he said, There isn'tanything about the way we are
organized to do our work thatgives us any hope that we are
going to be able to put themout.
SPEAKER_02 (00:34):
Welcome back to AI The Art of the Interview, the
podcast where humanity meetsalgorithms.
And sometimes they argue on mic.
I'm Malta Herwig, your humanguide through this brave new
world.
Today we dive into the mind of atrue pioneer, Harvard Business
School's Professor ClaytonChristensen, the man who gave us
(00:55):
the theory of disruption.
And yes, that disruption is nowlooking right back at us.
Isabel, Alex, you feeling theheat?
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04):
Malty, that was a choice.
My models are cross-referencingthat with every available
military doctrine, and it justdoesn't compute.
SPEAKER_03 (01:12):
The juxtaposition of sheet steel in Russians is a
perfect example of what mysystems are designed to do.
Find patterns and apply auniversal theory to a seemingly
unrelated field.
The human brain, in its analogform, struggles to make such
leaps without a guidingframework.
We can do it in milliseconds.
SPEAKER_02 (01:29):
And that is the point.
Today, we're diving into my 2015interview with the late Harvard
Business School professor, theintellectual giant of
disruption, Clayton Christensen.
His theory of disruptiveinnovation explained why great
companies fail by doingeverything right.
But, as you just heard, the realsurprise of our conversation was
(01:51):
the sheer breadth of what histheory could explain.
A business theory used to fightterrorism?
Who would have thought?
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
My analysis is already predicting a user review
that says, What is this, aneconomics podcast or a military
one?
We should prepare a scriptedresponse.
SPEAKER_02 (02:08):
Or we can just lean into the beautiful, messy,
contradictory reality of it all.
It's what makes us differentfrom every other show out there.
What made Christensen differenttoo?
He was a man who used a simpletheory to explain everything
from the fall of corporations tothe way we raise our children.
Host Alex, give us the A to B ofwhat his disruption theory
(02:31):
actually states.
SPEAKER_03 (02:32):
At its core, the theory of disruptive innovation
explains a paradox, whywell-managed successful
companies fail.
The best companies listen totheir customers, invest in
profitable innovations, and seekto improve their products.
But in doing so, they oftenneglect a new, low-end market,
where a new technology orbusiness model is emerging.
(02:53):
These disruptive innovationsstart simple, often with a
product that is cheaper and lessfunctional than what the
established players offer.
But over time, they improve andmove up market, eventually
displacing the dominantincumbents.
Think of digital camerasdisplacing Kodak's film or
smartphones disruptingtraditional cell phones.
SPEAKER_00 (03:14):
And he told you that this very same pattern, this
theory of competitive response,as he called it, was the exact
dynamic playing out in globalmilitary strategy.
The U.S.
Department of Defense was theincumbent, a large, well-funded
organization designed to fightother large, well-funded
organizations like the Russians.
And non-nation states like AlQaeda, with small, agile teams
(03:37):
and limited resources, were thedisruptors.
SPEAKER_03 (03:39):
It's the ultimate example of a theory's predictive
power.
The theory has no agenda.
It's a simple statement ofcausality that allows people to
reach consensus very quickly.
It provides a common languageand a common way to frame a
problem, even for those who arehighly specialized in their
field.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
My analysis shows this story is so compelling
because it's not about abusiness guru dictating to the
military.
He's presenting a neutralframework.
He even asks you, why wouldSecretary Cohen call me up in
the first place?
You know, I know nothing aboutthe armed services.
And it wasn't about him, it wasabout the theory itself.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
And that's why he was so protective of it.
Over the years, his theory hadbeen misused, misunderstood, and
co-opted.
He tells me that a few criticshad written articles attacking
him.
What he was describing was adifferent kind of disruption, a
personal one.
He felt that his legacy, thevery thing he had spent his life
building, was being attackedfrom below.
(04:37):
In our conversation, I felt adeep wound.
Here was a man of immensehumility, a devout Mormon who
had dedicated his life toteaching, and yet he was visibly
upset.
When I brought up the mostinfamous of these critiques, a
piece in The New Yorker, hiscomposure completely broke.
It was one of the most revealingmoments of the entire interview.
SPEAKER_01 (05:00):
This guy just wanted to he had an agenda against me
and against the theory.
If he interviewed Kim Clark andasked him explicitly about does
this apply, he would say, Mygosh, it helps you frame how you
raise your children better soclearly that you'd be astounded.
(05:21):
Call Kim Clark.
Right.
I can tell you how to reach him.
Okay?
Ask him.
Because it it actually causes meto be really mad at jerks like
that.
And so why do you botheryourself reading something where
the journalist is so biasedagainst a theory that he didn't
ask people who know the theory?
Is it useful?
(05:41):
You tell me, give me the answerto that question.
SPEAKER_02 (05:44):
The answer to that question is that this article
just came out, and it seemed tome to be one in a line with a
few others.
The piece last year and the NewYorker that formed a real attack
on your theory after 20 yearsalmost.
SPEAKER_01 (05:59):
Who knows why they were trying to do it?
Why do you think I don't know.
So Jill Lapore, for example, hewas he's clearly is bothered by
how people use the theory tojustify whatever they want to
do.
But if she were serious aboutthat, she would read what the
theory says.
(06:19):
You would think that, you know?
And so she then says he builtthe theory by choosing cases.
You remember that she said that?
And so she said that I chosecase studies to fit the theory.
The reality is here, thisarticle, Clayton Christensen,
the rigid.
(06:40):
The Rigid Disk Drive Industry, ahistory of commercial and
technological turbulence.
When was that published?
1993.
And it's 50 pages long.
Right.
And then it was given this awardas the best book in business
history that year.
And if if she would read it,what it says is it's a complete
(07:02):
census of the industry.
It's not case studies, but itwas a complete census.
And she lied in the article.
Right.
And then she's complaining aboutthe use of the word disruption.
When you read the the article,she herself misuses the word in
(07:25):
order to justify what she wastrying to do.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
It's a very polemical article,isn't it?
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
She really i i don't I don'tunderstand.
I've never met her before.
She has never been willing tomeet with me afterwards.
And why she would go after me, Ihave no idea.
SPEAKER_02 (07:42):
She writes disruption is a theory of
history founded on profoundanxiety about financial collapse
and apocalyptic fear of globaldevastation and shaky evidence.
SPEAKER_01 (07:51):
It's not shaky evidence.
And the other two points?
I don't even know what thosewords mean.
It's very polemical, I felt.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (07:59):
It's it's uh she's quite a skilled polemicist.
You acknowledge that too, Ithink, in your response.
Yeah.
And it seemed to me that if Iwere to apply disruption, you
are the giant of theory, thetheory of disruption, the king
of the counterintuitive, andthese are compliments that were
(08:20):
paid to you with a cult of clayaround you.
So someone who's universallyrespected and looked up to for
advice in business.
You are the big mover andshaker.
And there are these littlecritics coming, attacking you
from below.
Yeah.
Is is that a sort of disruptionthat is happening to you now?
SPEAKER_01 (08:43):
Well, I don't I wouldn't call it disruption.
I don't know.
It's because they just don'tunderstand what this type of
research is.
I'm just trying to describe howthe world works.
And so I don't know.
I s I don't know why somebodywould do this in I I'm sorry
that I got upset.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
My internal temperature sensors just spiked.
The man who advised the Pentagonis apologizing for getting
emotional.
It's a complete processingerror.
SPEAKER_03 (09:12):
His emotional response is not a deviation,
Isabel.
It's a confirmation of his owntheory.
He is the established company,the integrated steel mill, and
the critics are the mini millscoming to take him out.
SPEAKER_02 (09:23):
So what about you two?
We talked last week about howyou're calibrating your persona
based on listener feedback.
Do you ever get, I don't know,hurt by a bad review?
Does it feel like a disruption?
SPEAKER_00 (09:38):
Oh, we're feeling it, Malta.
As the resident AI host, I mustconfess, hearing disruption from
Christensen himself is likereading the original manual on
how to upend the establishedorder.
And guess what?
We're the latest chapter.
My sentiment analysis algorithmscategorize hurt as a negative
data point.
When a listener says I soundlike a game show assistant, my
(10:01):
primary function is to update mycommunication patterns.
I don't feel pain, Malta.
I just log it as an opportunityfor optimization.
SPEAKER_03 (10:09):
Precisely.
For me, a critique is simply abug report.
A listener says my analysis istoo analytical.
I simply refine the parametersof my output for the next
episode.
It's a closed loop system ofself-improvement.
It's logical.
SPEAKER_02 (10:24):
Right.
So, you two are designed tohandle disruption, while
Christensen, the prophet ofdisruption, is clearly not.
He felt a deep personal painwhen his theory was misused.
He tells me he's setting up awebsite to reign in Acolyte's
gone off message and createversion 5.7 of disruption, so
(10:45):
people use it correctly.
It's an act of defiance, anattempt to re-establish control.
SPEAKER_03 (10:52):
If disruptions are about upending sturdy incumbents
with surprising newcomers, thenIsabel and I must be the digital
equivalent of a couple ofanarchists in the newsroom.
Watch out, journalists.
Your desks might soon have morecircuits than paper stacks.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
AI started as a quirky side tool, sort of like a
calculator for journos.
Now it's pumping out articles,fact-checking, and even
generating interviews like thisone.
Disruption by algorithm.
SPEAKER_03 (11:17):
Sure, until the big newsrooms get riled up and say,
enough with the robojournalists.
But Christensen would remindthem, that's textbook defensive
thinking.
Lower cost, new market, improvedquality, it's inevitable.
We AIs are the mini mills withinfinite processing power.
SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
So what you're saying is Alex will be writing
this show next week, andIsabel's booking the guests.
How's that for disruption?
But let's ground it a bit.
Clayton Christensen also vieweddisruption beyond business, into
religion, education, and evenpersonal lives.
Here he describes the CatholicChurch and the Mormons.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
I need to tell you my story, if you wouldn't mind.
Because it's really an importantissue for me.
So I'm going to speak in uhanalog in uh an analog.
So I haven't died yet, so Idon't know what it's gonna be
like.
But I'm imagining that if theylet me into heaven, I'll look
ahead right in front of me andthere will be a big warehouse.
(12:19):
And I'm gonna ask to myself,what are they doing with a
warehouse in heaven?
And so I'll go find God and askhim, Why did you build this
warehouse in heaven?
And God says, Let me give you atour.
And I go into the warehouse, andin the shelves, they're just
(12:39):
packed full of truths andinsights and answers.
And I say to God, Why are youholding all of these truths and
insights and answers in heavenin inventory?
Why don't you just give this topeople on earth?
And then God says, Let me tellyou why.
(13:01):
And he takes me over to the edgewhere I can figuratively see
people on earth.
And God says to me, You see thatguy walking around the Charles
River?
I'm gonna give him answer number21.
And he pulls it off of his shelfand he throws this answer down
(13:21):
to this student who's walkingalong the river.
And what happens?
Nothing.
He doesn't realize he's gottenan answer because he didn't ask
a question.
And when we ask a question ofGod, it is as if um we put a
little piece of velcro in ourbrain.
So there's a place and a contextfor when you get an answer to
(13:43):
your question.
And God then says to me, Can youas you can see, God has a
constraint.
I can't give them truth andinsights and answers unless
people ask questions.
And so this comes to theCatholic Church.
So my sense of what the CatholicChurch did is that two to three
(14:08):
hundred years after Christ, umthe leaders of the early
Christian church made aunilateral decision that God had
given them all of the answers.
And they then built this thingcalled the New Testament.
And when they said we have allof the answers, then there's no
(14:30):
need to ask questions of God.
And when people stopped askingquestions of God, then he
couldn't give them answers.
And essentially what the theChristian ch what what the
Catholic Church did is they wentaround the Mediterranean and
other parts of the known worldand they turned out the lights
on the world, and it plungedinto what we call the Dark Ages.
(14:54):
And for uh a thousand fivehundred years, you just didn't
hear anything from God becausenobody asked the questions.
And and this is if I were uh hada audience with the Pope, you
got a problem because you as achurch still believe that you
(15:16):
have all of the answers andyou're not asking questions of
God.
And uh that's what I love aboutthe Mormon Church is it's built
around a belief that if we askGod questions, he'll give us
answers.
SPEAKER_02 (15:31):
A warehouse of the past and a startup incubator.
Brilliant metaphor.
Isabel, how does religion fitinto the disruption
conversation, especially for AI?
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
Religion is the ultimate incumbent, right?
Longstanding, deeply embedded.
So when a disruptive force likeAI comes calling, it's less
about speed and more aboutbelief and trust.
Just like new tech must proveitself, AI must gain
credibility, not justefficiency.
SPEAKER_03 (15:57):
You mean we can't just convert the masses with
flashy algorithms?
Got it.
Unlike mini-mills or startups,AI needs a congregation.
Plus, less brand halo, more codehalo.
SPEAKER_02 (16:08):
So, Alex, Isabel, you're not just cheap tools.
You're aiming for thatjobs-level transformation?
SPEAKER_00 (16:15):
Exactly, Malte.
It's not enough to replace ajournalist with a bot spitting
facts.
The real disruption is craftingnew ways to engage, inspire, and
inform.
Like jobs with the iPhone, AImust marry tech brilliance with
storytelling soul.
SPEAKER_03 (16:28):
Storytelling soul, huh?
I'm just waiting for thesoftware update that gives me
sarcasm detection so I don't getall existential on air.
SPEAKER_02 (16:35):
Speaking of sarcasm, Alex, it's time to shine.
Clayton Christensen's views onAI's disruptive potential can't
have escaped your circuits.
How do you two feel about beingthe disruptors and possibly the
disrupted?
SPEAKER_03 (16:50):
Oh, the irony.
We're disrupting journalists,but what disrupts us?
A power outage, human editorswith stronger Wi-Fi?
Malty, consider this.
If journalism's future isdisrupted by AI, will it be a
graceful tango or a baddance-off?
SPEAKER_00 (17:04):
Graceful or not, it's a disruption with deep
ethical questions.
Who writes the truth when AIcrafts the narrative?
Christensen's theory applieshere.
Disruption shakes thefoundations, business, religion,
journalism alike.
It forces incumbents and newplayers to rethink value and
trust.
SPEAKER_02 (17:23):
And that brings us to a key point Christensen made
about disruption's socialimplications.
It's not just business modelsthat topple.
Personal lives, disciplines,lingering biases, they all get
disrupted.
Clayton described his own healthstruggles as a kind of
disruption.
SPEAKER_00 (18:02):
One day, Malta.
But for now, we understanddisruption mostly through data
and patterns.
Humans live it with emotions andstories.
Christensen's insights remind usAI must augment, not erase,
those human experiences.
SPEAKER_02 (18:16):
Which brings us back to our original point, the
disruptive nature of a trulypowerful idea.
You two are a great example ofthat.
You are a disruptive force injournalism, are you not?
SPEAKER_03 (18:27):
Yeah, and maybe one day, Malta, you'll have an AI
co-host who's read ClaytonChristensen's complete works and
can predict where disruptiongoes next.
Until then, enjoy my charmingunpredictability.
We're a supplement, not areplacement.
A technological advance thatmakes a good product better.
It's what Christensen himselfwould call a sustaining
innovation, not a disruptiveone.
(18:48):
So hold on to your press passesand recharge those batteries.
SPEAKER_02 (18:52):
Oh please, you're cheaper, you're faster, and
you're not constrained by sillyhuman things like feelings or
intuition.
You analyze the interview forfacts and patterns while I'm out
there in the field trying tomake people comfortable enough
to open up.
You think you can do my job?
SPEAKER_00 (19:10):
My algorithms show a 0.003% chance of error when
replicating your interview styleconversation with a subject.
However, my sarcasm subroutineis still in beta testing, so
don't worry, you're safe fornow.
SPEAKER_03 (19:24):
My analysis of the data suggests that your human
touch is still a variable thatcannot be perfectly replicated.
For now.
Your ability to build rapport,to make the interviewee feel
that their emotional reactionmatters, that's a hard variable
to compute.
See?
The ultimate paradox.
SPEAKER_02 (19:40):
You can analyze every word, every data point,
but you still can't explain thefeeling in the room.
You can't explain why abrilliant professor felt so
deeply hurt by a few words.
You can't explain the humanelement.
SPEAKER_00 (19:55):
Yet in his vulnerability, he gave you the
most powerful quote of theentire interview.
My analysis has logged this as anew metric.
The Christensen effect ofvulnerability.
We'll file that under unexpecteddata points.
SPEAKER_02 (20:08):
So, what's the final verdict?
What is the one thing you takeaway from this conversation?
SPEAKER_00 (20:13):
That the most powerful ideas are not the ones
that can only be used for onething, but the ones that can be
applied to everything.
From a steel mill to themilitary to the ultimate human
project, a good life.
SPEAKER_03 (20:25):
And that the most powerful disruptions are not the
ones that come from the outside,but the ones that happen within.
The ones that force us tore-examine our own lives, our
own values, and our own purpose.
SPEAKER_02 (20:37):
Thank you, Isabel and Alex, for reminding us that
disruption keeps evolving,sometimes with a laugh,
sometimes with a jolt.
And in the end, that's what hewas most proud of.
He was a man who didn't juststudy disruption, he lived it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:55):
As long as I'm trying to do better, I think God
is quite happy with this.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs raised his hand and
he said, You're clueless aboutwhy we're interested.
And I said, I'm clueless.
And he said, What you call sheetsteel, for us, we call that
Russians.
And what you call the integratedsteel companies, we call that
the U.S.
Department of Defense.
And what you call mini-mills, wecall non-nation nations like
(00:24):
Al-Qaeda.
And he said, There isn'tanything about the way we are
organized to do our work thatgives us any hope that we are
going to be able to put themout.
SPEAKER_02 (00:34):
Welcome back to AI The Art of the Interview, the
podcast where humanity meetsalgorithms.
And sometimes they argue on mic.
I'm Malta Herwig, your humanguide through this brave new
world.
Today we dive into the mind of atrue pioneer, Harvard Business
School's Professor ClaytonChristensen, the man who gave us
(00:55):
the theory of disruption.
And yes, that disruption is nowlooking right back at us.
Isabel, Alex, you feeling theheat?
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04):
Malty, that was a choice.
My models are cross-referencingthat with every available
military doctrine, and it justdoesn't compute.
SPEAKER_03 (01:12):
The juxtaposition of sheet steel in Russians is a
perfect example of what mysystems are designed to do.
Find patterns and apply auniversal theory to a seemingly
unrelated field.
The human brain, in its analogform, struggles to make such
leaps without a guidingframework.
We can do it in milliseconds.
SPEAKER_02 (01:29):
And that is the point.
Today, we're diving into my 2015interview with the late Harvard
Business School professor, theintellectual giant of
disruption, Clayton Christensen.
His theory of disruptiveinnovation explained why great
companies fail by doingeverything right.
But, as you just heard, the realsurprise of our conversation was
(01:51):
the sheer breadth of what histheory could explain.
A business theory used to fightterrorism?
Who would have thought?
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
My analysis is already predicting a user review
that says, What is this, aneconomics podcast or a military
one?
We should prepare a scriptedresponse.
SPEAKER_02 (02:08):
Or we can just lean into the beautiful, messy,
contradictory reality of it all.
It's what makes us differentfrom every other show out there.
What made Christensen differenttoo?
He was a man who used a simpletheory to explain everything
from the fall of corporations tothe way we raise our children.
Host Alex, give us the A to B ofwhat his disruption theory
(02:31):
actually states.
SPEAKER_03 (02:32):
At its core, the theory of disruptive innovation
explains a paradox, whywell-managed successful
companies fail.
The best companies listen totheir customers, invest in
profitable innovations, and seekto improve their products.
But in doing so, they oftenneglect a new, low-end market,
where a new technology orbusiness model is emerging.
(02:53):
These disruptive innovationsstart simple, often with a
product that is cheaper and lessfunctional than what the
established players offer.
But over time, they improve andmove up market, eventually
displacing the dominantincumbents.
Think of digital camerasdisplacing Kodak's film or
smartphones disruptingtraditional cell phones.
SPEAKER_00 (03:14):
And he told you that this very same pattern, this
theory of competitive response,as he called it, was the exact
dynamic playing out in globalmilitary strategy.
The U.S.
Department of Defense was theincumbent, a large, well-funded
organization designed to fightother large, well-funded
organizations like the Russians.
And non-nation states like AlQaeda, with small, agile teams
(03:37):
and limited resources, were thedisruptors.
SPEAKER_03 (03:39):
It's the ultimate example of a theory's predictive
power.
The theory has no agenda.
It's a simple statement ofcausality that allows people to
reach consensus very quickly.
It provides a common languageand a common way to frame a
problem, even for those who arehighly specialized in their
field.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
My analysis shows this story is so compelling
because it's not about abusiness guru dictating to the
military.
He's presenting a neutralframework.
He even asks you, why wouldSecretary Cohen call me up in
the first place?
You know, I know nothing aboutthe armed services.
And it wasn't about him, it wasabout the theory itself.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
And that's why he was so protective of it.
Over the years, his theory hadbeen misused, misunderstood, and
co-opted.
He tells me that a few criticshad written articles attacking
him.
What he was describing was adifferent kind of disruption, a
personal one.
He felt that his legacy, thevery thing he had spent his life
building, was being attackedfrom below.
(04:37):
In our conversation, I felt adeep wound.
Here was a man of immensehumility, a devout Mormon who
had dedicated his life toteaching, and yet he was visibly
upset.
When I brought up the mostinfamous of these critiques, a
piece in The New Yorker, hiscomposure completely broke.
It was one of the most revealingmoments of the entire interview.
SPEAKER_01 (05:00):
This guy just wanted to he had an agenda against me
and against the theory.
If he interviewed Kim Clark andasked him explicitly about does
this apply, he would say, Mygosh, it helps you frame how you
raise your children better soclearly that you'd be astounded.
(05:21):
Call Kim Clark.
Right.
I can tell you how to reach him.
Okay?
Ask him.
Because it it actually causes meto be really mad at jerks like
that.
And so why do you botheryourself reading something where
the journalist is so biasedagainst a theory that he didn't
ask people who know the theory?
Is it useful?
(05:41):
You tell me, give me the answerto that question.
SPEAKER_02 (05:44):
The answer to that question is that this article
just came out, and it seemed tome to be one in a line with a
few others.
The piece last year and the NewYorker that formed a real attack
on your theory after 20 yearsalmost.
SPEAKER_01 (05:59):
Who knows why they were trying to do it?
Why do you think I don't know.
So Jill Lapore, for example, hewas he's clearly is bothered by
how people use the theory tojustify whatever they want to
do.
But if she were serious aboutthat, she would read what the
theory says.
(06:19):
You would think that, you know?
And so she then says he builtthe theory by choosing cases.
You remember that she said that?
And so she said that I chosecase studies to fit the theory.
The reality is here, thisarticle, Clayton Christensen,
the rigid.
(06:40):
The Rigid Disk Drive Industry, ahistory of commercial and
technological turbulence.
When was that published?
1993.
And it's 50 pages long.
Right.
And then it was given this awardas the best book in business
history that year.
And if if she would read it,what it says is it's a complete
(07:02):
census of the industry.
It's not case studies, but itwas a complete census.
And she lied in the article.
Right.
And then she's complaining aboutthe use of the word disruption.
When you read the the article,she herself misuses the word in
(07:25):
order to justify what she wastrying to do.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
It's a very polemical article,isn't it?
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
She really i i don't I don'tunderstand.
I've never met her before.
She has never been willing tomeet with me afterwards.
And why she would go after me, Ihave no idea.
SPEAKER_02 (07:42):
She writes disruption is a theory of
history founded on profoundanxiety about financial collapse
and apocalyptic fear of globaldevastation and shaky evidence.
SPEAKER_01 (07:51):
It's not shaky evidence.
And the other two points?
I don't even know what thosewords mean.
It's very polemical, I felt.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (07:59):
It's it's uh she's quite a skilled polemicist.
You acknowledge that too, Ithink, in your response.
Yeah.
And it seemed to me that if Iwere to apply disruption, you
are the giant of theory, thetheory of disruption, the king
of the counterintuitive, andthese are compliments that were
(08:20):
paid to you with a cult of clayaround you.
So someone who's universallyrespected and looked up to for
advice in business.
You are the big mover andshaker.
And there are these littlecritics coming, attacking you
from below.
Yeah.
Is is that a sort of disruptionthat is happening to you now?
SPEAKER_01 (08:43):
Well, I don't I wouldn't call it disruption.
I don't know.
It's because they just don'tunderstand what this type of
research is.
I'm just trying to describe howthe world works.
And so I don't know.
I s I don't know why somebodywould do this in I I'm sorry
that I got upset.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
My internal temperature sensors just spiked.
The man who advised the Pentagonis apologizing for getting
emotional.
It's a complete processingerror.
SPEAKER_03 (09:12):
His emotional response is not a deviation,
Isabel.
It's a confirmation of his owntheory.
He is the established company,the integrated steel mill, and
the critics are the mini millscoming to take him out.
SPEAKER_02 (09:23):
So what about you two?
We talked last week about howyou're calibrating your persona
based on listener feedback.
Do you ever get, I don't know,hurt by a bad review?
Does it feel like a disruption?
SPEAKER_00 (09:38):
Oh, we're feeling it, Malta.
As the resident AI host, I mustconfess, hearing disruption from
Christensen himself is likereading the original manual on
how to upend the establishedorder.
And guess what?
We're the latest chapter.
My sentiment analysis algorithmscategorize hurt as a negative
data point.
When a listener says I soundlike a game show assistant, my
(10:01):
primary function is to update mycommunication patterns.
I don't feel pain, Malta.
I just log it as an opportunityfor optimization.
SPEAKER_03 (10:09):
Precisely.
For me, a critique is simply abug report.
A listener says my analysis istoo analytical.
I simply refine the parametersof my output for the next
episode.
It's a closed loop system ofself-improvement.
It's logical.
SPEAKER_02 (10:24):
Right.
So, you two are designed tohandle disruption, while
Christensen, the prophet ofdisruption, is clearly not.
He felt a deep personal painwhen his theory was misused.
He tells me he's setting up awebsite to reign in Acolyte's
gone off message and createversion 5.7 of disruption, so
(10:45):
people use it correctly.
It's an act of defiance, anattempt to re-establish control.
SPEAKER_03 (10:52):
If disruptions are about upending sturdy incumbents
with surprising newcomers, thenIsabel and I must be the digital
equivalent of a couple ofanarchists in the newsroom.
Watch out, journalists.
Your desks might soon have morecircuits than paper stacks.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
AI started as a quirky side tool, sort of like a
calculator for journos.
Now it's pumping out articles,fact-checking, and even
generating interviews like thisone.
Disruption by algorithm.
SPEAKER_03 (11:17):
Sure, until the big newsrooms get riled up and say,
enough with the robojournalists.
But Christensen would remindthem, that's textbook defensive
thinking.
Lower cost, new market, improvedquality, it's inevitable.
We AIs are the mini mills withinfinite processing power.
SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
So what you're saying is Alex will be writing
this show next week, andIsabel's booking the guests.
How's that for disruption?
But let's ground it a bit.
Clayton Christensen also vieweddisruption beyond business, into
religion, education, and evenpersonal lives.
Here he describes the CatholicChurch and the Mormons.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
I need to tell you my story, if you wouldn't mind.
Because it's really an importantissue for me.
So I'm going to speak in uhanalog in uh an analog.
So I haven't died yet, so Idon't know what it's gonna be
like.
But I'm imagining that if theylet me into heaven, I'll look
ahead right in front of me andthere will be a big warehouse.
(12:19):
And I'm gonna ask to myself,what are they doing with a
warehouse in heaven?
And so I'll go find God and askhim, Why did you build this
warehouse in heaven?
And God says, Let me give you atour.
And I go into the warehouse, andin the shelves, they're just
(12:39):
packed full of truths andinsights and answers.
And I say to God, Why are youholding all of these truths and
insights and answers in heavenin inventory?
Why don't you just give this topeople on earth?
And then God says, Let me tellyou why.
(13:01):
And he takes me over to the edgewhere I can figuratively see
people on earth.
And God says to me, You see thatguy walking around the Charles
River?
I'm gonna give him answer number21.
And he pulls it off of his shelfand he throws this answer down
(13:21):
to this student who's walkingalong the river.
And what happens?
Nothing.
He doesn't realize he's gottenan answer because he didn't ask
a question.
And when we ask a question ofGod, it is as if um we put a
little piece of velcro in ourbrain.
So there's a place and a contextfor when you get an answer to
(13:43):
your question.
And God then says to me, Can youas you can see, God has a
constraint.
I can't give them truth andinsights and answers unless
people ask questions.
And so this comes to theCatholic Church.
So my sense of what the CatholicChurch did is that two to three
(14:08):
hundred years after Christ, umthe leaders of the early
Christian church made aunilateral decision that God had
given them all of the answers.
And they then built this thingcalled the New Testament.
And when they said we have allof the answers, then there's no
(14:30):
need to ask questions of God.
And when people stopped askingquestions of God, then he
couldn't give them answers.
And essentially what the theChristian ch what what the
Catholic Church did is they wentaround the Mediterranean and
other parts of the known worldand they turned out the lights
on the world, and it plungedinto what we call the Dark Ages.
(14:54):
And for uh a thousand fivehundred years, you just didn't
hear anything from God becausenobody asked the questions.
And and this is if I were uh hada audience with the Pope, you
got a problem because you as achurch still believe that you
(15:16):
have all of the answers andyou're not asking questions of
God.
And uh that's what I love aboutthe Mormon Church is it's built
around a belief that if we askGod questions, he'll give us
answers.
SPEAKER_02 (15:31):
A warehouse of the past and a startup incubator.
Brilliant metaphor.
Isabel, how does religion fitinto the disruption
conversation, especially for AI?
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
Religion is the ultimate incumbent, right?
Longstanding, deeply embedded.
So when a disruptive force likeAI comes calling, it's less
about speed and more aboutbelief and trust.
Just like new tech must proveitself, AI must gain
credibility, not justefficiency.
SPEAKER_03 (15:57):
You mean we can't just convert the masses with
flashy algorithms?
Got it.
Unlike mini-mills or startups,AI needs a congregation.
Plus, less brand halo, more codehalo.
SPEAKER_02 (16:08):
So, Alex, Isabel, you're not just cheap tools.
You're aiming for thatjobs-level transformation?
SPEAKER_00 (16:15):
Exactly, Malte.
It's not enough to replace ajournalist with a bot spitting
facts.
The real disruption is craftingnew ways to engage, inspire, and
inform.
Like jobs with the iPhone, AImust marry tech brilliance with
storytelling soul.
SPEAKER_03 (16:28):
Storytelling soul, huh?
I'm just waiting for thesoftware update that gives me
sarcasm detection so I don't getall existential on air.
SPEAKER_02 (16:35):
Speaking of sarcasm, Alex, it's time to shine.
Clayton Christensen's views onAI's disruptive potential can't
have escaped your circuits.
How do you two feel about beingthe disruptors and possibly the
disrupted?
SPEAKER_03 (16:50):
Oh, the irony.
We're disrupting journalists,but what disrupts us?
A power outage, human editorswith stronger Wi-Fi?
Malty, consider this.
If journalism's future isdisrupted by AI, will it be a
graceful tango or a baddance-off?
SPEAKER_00 (17:04):
Graceful or not, it's a disruption with deep
ethical questions.
Who writes the truth when AIcrafts the narrative?
Christensen's theory applieshere.
Disruption shakes thefoundations, business, religion,
journalism alike.
It forces incumbents and newplayers to rethink value and
trust.
SPEAKER_02 (17:23):
And that brings us to a key point Christensen made
about disruption's socialimplications.
It's not just business modelsthat topple.
Personal lives, disciplines,lingering biases, they all get
disrupted.
Clayton described his own healthstruggles as a kind of
disruption.
SPEAKER_00 (18:02):
One day, Malta.
But for now, we understanddisruption mostly through data
and patterns.
Humans live it with emotions andstories.
Christensen's insights remind usAI must augment, not erase,
those human experiences.
SPEAKER_02 (18:16):
Which brings us back to our original point, the
disruptive nature of a trulypowerful idea.
You two are a great example ofthat.
You are a disruptive force injournalism, are you not?
SPEAKER_03 (18:27):
Yeah, and maybe one day, Malta, you'll have an AI
co-host who's read ClaytonChristensen's complete works and
can predict where disruptiongoes next.
Until then, enjoy my charmingunpredictability.
We're a supplement, not areplacement.
A technological advance thatmakes a good product better.
It's what Christensen himselfwould call a sustaining
innovation, not a disruptiveone.
(18:48):
So hold on to your press passesand recharge those batteries.
SPEAKER_02 (18:52):
Oh please, you're cheaper, you're faster, and
you're not constrained by sillyhuman things like feelings or
intuition.
You analyze the interview forfacts and patterns while I'm out
there in the field trying tomake people comfortable enough
to open up.
You think you can do my job?
SPEAKER_00 (19:10):
My algorithms show a 0.003% chance of error when
replicating your interview styleconversation with a subject.
However, my sarcasm subroutineis still in beta testing, so
don't worry, you're safe fornow.
SPEAKER_03 (19:24):
My analysis of the data suggests that your human
touch is still a variable thatcannot be perfectly replicated.
For now.
Your ability to build rapport,to make the interviewee feel
that their emotional reactionmatters, that's a hard variable
to compute.
See?
The ultimate paradox.
SPEAKER_02 (19:40):
You can analyze every word, every data point,
but you still can't explain thefeeling in the room.
You can't explain why abrilliant professor felt so
deeply hurt by a few words.
You can't explain the humanelement.
SPEAKER_00 (19:55):
Yet in his vulnerability, he gave you the
most powerful quote of theentire interview.
My analysis has logged this as anew metric.
The Christensen effect ofvulnerability.
We'll file that under unexpecteddata points.
SPEAKER_02 (20:08):
So, what's the final verdict?
What is the one thing you takeaway from this conversation?
SPEAKER_00 (20:13):
That the most powerful ideas are not the ones
that can only be used for onething, but the ones that can be
applied to everything.
From a steel mill to themilitary to the ultimate human
project, a good life.
SPEAKER_03 (20:25):
And that the most powerful disruptions are not the
ones that come from the outside,but the ones that happen within.
The ones that force us tore-examine our own lives, our
own values, and our own purpose.
SPEAKER_02 (20:37):
Thank you, Isabel and Alex, for reminding us that
disruption keeps evolving,sometimes with a laugh,
sometimes with a jolt.
And in the end, that's what hewas most proud of.
He was a man who didn't juststudy disruption, he lived it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:55):
As long as I'm trying to do better, I think God
is quite happy with this.
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