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A disruptive innovation is a technologically simple innovation in the form of a product, service, or business model that takes root in a tier of the market that is unattractive to the established leaders in an industry.

The reason why it is so difficult for existing firms to capitalize on disruptive innovations is that their processes and their business model that make them good at the existing business actually make them bad at competing for the disruption.

Companies, in fact, are specifically organized to under-invest in disruptive innovations! This is one reason why we often suggest that companies set up separate teams or groups to commercialize disruptive innovations. When disruptive innovations have to fight with other innovations for resources, they tend to lose out.

I don't feel that this concept of disruptive technology is the solution for everybody. But I think it's very important for innovators to understand what we've learned about established companies' motivation to target obvious profitable markets - and about their inability to find emerging ones. The evidence is just overwhelming.

From a product development perspective, choosing whether a technology is disruptive at a potential moment is key.

There just isn't anything more invigorating than to read an article or hear about an entrepreneur using the term 'disruptive technology' that makes no reference to me as the source. When it's clear they really got the idea and they use it as if it were in everyday parlance, that's the ultimate triumph.

The key is to embrace disruption and change early. Don't react to it decades later. You can't fight innovation.

Disruptive innovation is competitive strategy for an age seized by terror.

I don't want to disrupt anything. We never conceive of our products as disruptive - we don't look at something and say, 'Let's disrupt that.' It's always about how we can evolve this and make this better.

An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work.