Disruptive innovation depends on small innovators to succeed – it’s key to heg and vaccines

It is true that there is something called “innovation” found today in many products and services, but it is critically important to differentiate what Clayton Christensen calls “disruptive innovation” from the kind of innovation that simply maintains or improves on existing products or services in order to stay competitive and preserve market share. Many cutting-edge technologies require the kind of disruptive innovation that Professor Christensen describes and that are essential to this nation’s ability to maintain its leadership in science and technology. Examples abound – quantum computing, nuclear fusion, artificial intelligence, CRISPR, vaccines, etc. This type of disruptive innovation is far more the province of startups, entrepreneurs and high-risk investors than existing incumbents and large companies.

We should acknowledge that large companies are certainly important to our nation’s economy, and many large companies perform exceptionally well in terms of organizational efficiencies, cost control, manufacturing, distribution and developing worldwide markets. These organizations invest in R&D largely to improve their legacy products in order to compete with other companies and maintain their market share. What large companies do not do well is to create disruptive new technologies that amount to paradigm shifts. It is nimble entrepreneurs and inventors that are most likely to develop these new technologies that truly disrupt industries and markets and make old technologies obsolete. There are many reasons for this, starting with the level of passion in pursuit of a vision that leads startup founders and their employees to work hundreds of hours each week, sleep on the floor of an office or cubicle, and be single minded about their objectives for months or years. Ideas and dedication for creating genuinely new technologies characterize every startup I have ever worked with, and it is hard for any large company to replicate these qualities with its own employees.