Quotes from Clayton M. Christensen

Given that sacrifice deepens our commitment, it's important to ensure that what we sacrifice for is worthy of that commitment, as the church was for me and Annie. Perhaps nothing deserves sacrifice more than family—and not just that others should sacrifice for you, but that you should sacrifice for your family

There are times at which it is right not to listen to customers, right to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins, and right to aggressively pursue small, rather than substantial, markets.

Disruptive technologies bring to a market a very different value proposition than had been available previously. Generally, disruptive technologies underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have other features that a few fringe (and generally new) customers value. Products based on disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use.

But differentiation loses its meaning when the features and functionality have exceeded what the market demands.

One of the best ways to probe whether you can trust the advice that a theory is offering you is to look for anomalies—something that the theory cannot explain

Established firms attempt to push the technology into their established markets, while the successful entrants find a new market that values the technology.

The reason good managers strive for focus in their organizations is that processes and tasks can be readily aligned.

Capitalists seem uninterested in capitalism, even as eager entrepreneurs can't get financing. Businesses and investors sound like the Ancient Mariner, who complained, 'Water, water everywhere - nor any drop to drink.'

Things happen to us in unpredictable ways, but the effect that that has on the kind of people who we become actually is not only open to chance - we can influence it in pretty profound ways.

Growth makes management easier. In particular, it makes making labor concessions seem easy. It's when growth stops because you're being disrupted that managing becomes really, really hard, and as a result, most disrupted companies simply disappear.

In our personal lives, we have a lot of businesses going on. I have a profession, I'm a father, a spouse, a good member of my community. How much of my time and energy can I allocate to each of those things? What I allocate becomes the strategy I have for my family, and everything else.

We need to have a better balance between a deliberate strategy and staying open. Because in the end, most of us end up being successful in a career that we never imagined we would be in at the beginning.