Clayton Christensen Quotes

Information costs are reduced by the existence of large numbers of buyers and sellers. Under these conditions, prices embody the same information that would require large search costs by individual buyers and sellers in the absence of an organized market.

I've always believed that a good twist is one that, when it is presented to the audience, half of them say, 'I saw that coming.' And half of them are completely and totally shocked. Because if you don't have the half that saw it coming, then it wasn't fair: You never gave the audience a chance to guess it.

History shows you don't know what the future brings.

We want laws to be applied predictably.

The future is hidden by a dark impenetrable veil, and yet we struggle to pierce through it.

You never know what's going to happen the rest of the way. You can't predict. You don't know what Montreal is going to do to us this weekend, and you don't know what the Cubs are going to do to the Cardinals.

I've always seen the world through the eyes of a scientist. I love the predictable outcomes that science gives us, the control over the world that that can render.

It's very difficult to have any kind of romantic feelings for a movie where you know exactly what's going to happen in the first five minutes.

A book's flaws make it less predictable.

There's always the standard six people you can hire that have played all these villains in Hollywood. Instinctively, when they come on screen, you know what's going to happen. You don't know the story, but you know what they do.

Running became boring because it's so predictable. I got to a point where I knew what my competition could do.

The advertisements form the most interesting and practical city news. They are the hopes, the thoughts, the joys, the plans, the shames, the losses, the mishaps, the fortunes, the pleasures, the miseries, the politics, and the religion of the people. Each advertiser is therefore a reporter, a sort of penny-a-liner, he paying the penny. What a picture ... one day's advertisements ... presents to mankind!

Science offers us the possibility of understanding natural rhythms and events that must have seemed like the work of angry and unpredictable gods to our ancestors.

We simply have never been able to predict what our next challenge will be.

Every choice you make has a consequence, every one. It's mathematic. It cannot fail; it never fails.

It is impossible for a Die, with such determined force and direction which makes it fall on such a determined side, only I don't know the force and direction which makes it fall on such a determin'd side, and therefore I call that Chance, which is nothing, but want of Art.

Technology tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. People generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice.

You just never know how anything is going to go.

You may do as you wish without fear of retribution. It may serve you, however, to be aware of consequences. Consequences are results. Natural outcomes. These are not at all the same as retributions, or punishments. Outcomes are simply that. They are what results from the natural application of natural laws. They are that which occurs, quite predictably, as a consequence of what has occurred.

I don't necessarily agree that all animals are unpredictable. The more you know about an animal, the more you can work with it safely.

As human beings, we always expect everyday change to happen slowly and steadily, and for there to be some relationship between cause and effect.

I know with certainty, that [an honest man] is not to put his hand into the fire, and hold it there, till it be consumed: And thisevent, I think I can foretell with the same assurance, as that, if he throw himself out at the window, and meet with no obstruction, he will not remain a moment suspended in the air.

Capitalism has taught us that markets are always more efficient than hierarchical managerial coordination. But in a situation where those three conditions aren't met, I can't outsource or partner with you because markets don't function in the absence of sufficient information.

Unbelief is safe, because it takes no risk and almost always gets what it expects.

There can never be surprises in logic.