Blog #3 - Public Interest Disruption

Public Interest Disruption

Sean Cuff | 19 November 2019

In reading this week's excerpt from The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton Christensen I was struck by his approach to managing disruption and disruptive technologies (1). Generally speaking, I viewed the practice of doing so as purely competitive: firms fail when beaten to better technology that unsettles their approach to the market. I was not thoughtfully considering the management of this process from the perspective of the business being disrupted or the business doing the disrupting.

Considering this new lens of analysis, I reflected on the series of public interest technology events I attended earlier this semester. In particular, Alphabet's X, or otherwise referred to as their "Moonshot Factory," began to make more sense to me as a business model. X operates as a testing ground for utility, systems, and other publicly interested service innovations. From sub stratosphere balloons carrying WiFi connections to rural areas to data delivery infrastructure to seawater fuel, each of these innovations are disrupting sustaining technologies that operate as pseudo-utilities or public goods (2).

Alphabet is subjectively a successful company that is disruptive in and of itself. However, their sectioning off speculative business lines like X makes more sense to me now. This structure allows X to work in smaller, niche markets on products that have yet to form into even small markets, using speculative, research driven technologies that may preempt market demand in some circumstances. 

The value of X as a separate entity under Alphabet is hard to calculate. The potential of their technologies and spin off companies could be market defining and transform society and government. Their management structure seems to position them well to benefit from the potential of X, and not help captive by a disruptive, unproven world.

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(1) Christensen, Clayton. Introduction: Why Good Companies Fail to Thrive in Fast-Moving Industries. Harvard Business School Press.
(2) X Projects Page: https://x.company/projects/