The Trouble with Tech Companies (and Their Strategies)

Turn breakthrough ideas into real results at the virtual HBR Innovation Summit on November 12th with top CEOs and master classes on AI and growth. HBR executive subscribers attend free, with exclusive programming November 13th. Learn more at hbr.org slash innovation summit. I'm Ada Ignatius. I'm Alison Beard and this is the HBR Ideacast.

So Alison, you know, there are times when someone puts their finger on something that we sense and that we experience. but we don't yet have a word for. Such as? Well, Clay Christensen did that with disruption, right? The term is overused now to refer to almost any business challenge, but his definition was very precise when newcomers start at the bottom of the market, win customers there, and innovate up the value chain to displace the incumbent, okay?

So now Corey Doctorow, a well-known tech writer, has put his finger on another phenomenon that did not have a name, and that is the gradual evolution, he would say, deterioration of tech platforms. So Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and so on. We fall in love with them, but they evolve into something we fall out of love with. but we're kind of stuck in their world. And he calls that the inshidification of these services.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (27 minutes, 5,103 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.