The Perennial Gale of Creative Destruction

Evolutionary biologists have proven that the more adapted you are in your existing environment, the less able you are to adapt to environmental changes. We blindly cling to “that is the way we have always done it” in defiance of the evidence that this way is no longer relevant to success. This is the history of business. New ideas, inventions, and business models from the tinkerer in the garage change the world, while rendering obsolete the existing modes of production, infrastructure, and business models. The automobile replaced the horse and buggy, the calculator replaced the slide rule, and the personal computer replaced the typewriter, and so on in a never-ending “perennial gale of creative destruction,” as described by economist Joseph Schumpeter. Clayton Christensen writes, “Generally, the leading practitioners of the old order become the victims of disruption, not the initiators of it.” Join Ed and Ron as they look at creative destruction, an essential process in a free market.