The whole enterprise of teaching managers is steeped in the ethic of data-driven analytical support. The problem is, the data is only available about the past. So the way weve taught managers to make decisions and consultants to analyze problems condemns them to taking action when its too late.

When product performance outstrips the ability of customers to use that performance in an industry, the competitive game changes. Under those circumstances you have to decouple components businesses from assembly businesses.

In 15 years from now half of US universities may be in bankruptcy ... in the end I'm excited to see that happen. So pray for Harvard Business School if you wouldn't mind.

There's usually some process by which a potentially great idea gets prostituted into something lacklustre, or by which the wrong idea gets put forward.

When a technology, regardless of how different and difficult it is, sustains the trajectory of performance improvement, my research asserts that the leaders in the prior generation of technology are likely to end up on top of their industry at the end of the transition.

Quite often startups were first out of the gate with a sustaining technology. But somehow the leaders got the technology and stayed atop their industries. Sometimes they acquired the startup; sometimes they just developed the technology as a follower and used their muscle and mass to win. But they always won.

Breaking an old business model is always going to require leaders to follow their instinct. There will always be persuasive reasons not to take a risk. But if you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you’ve been passed by.