The Next Big Thing Will Start Out Looking Like a Toy
Chris Dixon · 2010
"Disruptive innovations are dismissed as toys because they underperform on established metrics while excelling on new ones."
Chris Dixon's famous essay argues that truly disruptive technologies are initially dismissed by incumbents because they look like low-quality toys. They lack the features needed by demanding mainstream users, but they improve exponentially.
This is a corollary to Clayton Christensen's Disruptive Innovation theory. Incumbent companies are highly rational; they listen to their best customers and build high-margin products. A new technology (like the early microcomputer or early internet) starts in a niche, hobbyist market. It lacks power and features, so incumbents ignore it. But because it has a fundamentally different, more scalable architecture, it improves on a steeper curve and eventually overtakes the incumbent's legacy system.
Why do incumbent companies usually ignore disruptive technologies at first?
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The explanation above is written with AI assistance. These are the originals — go to them to check it.
- The Next Big Thing Will Start Out Looking Like a Toy (Chris Dixon, 2010)Chris Dixon
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