Clayton Christensen Quotes

We built the iPod in weeks. It had to be what I thought it was going to be because there wasn't time for endless refinements.

One of the reasons microcomputers progressed so fast is people are willing to accept crashes. It's faster to build something and try it, even if it means you'll have to rebuild later... If you spent too much time building and massaging one vehicle, you don't learn anything.

You don't need anyone's approval and in fact, you probably won't get it, so don't even try. Build, release and iterate. Make a list of the features you want to create over the next six months and get going! For small companies, once a week; for larger companies, maybe twice a month.

He who makes the quickest, coolest prototypes reigns!

These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves -- they're good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.

A brilliant idea doesn't guarantee a successful invention. Real magic comes from a brilliant idea combined with willpower, tenacity, and a willingness to make mistakes.

Being an entrepreneur doesn't make you a rich tycoon and being an innovator doesn't mean that you're successful. It just means that you're interesting.

Moore's law is really about economics.

In technology, we spend so much time experimenting, fine-tuning, getting the absolute cheapest way to do something - so why aren't we doing that with social policy?

To be successful, innovation is not just about value creation, but value capture.

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown.

Start with something simple and small, then expand over time. If people call it a 'toy' you're definitely onto something.

Form follows failure.

The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

The answer to the question "where do good ideas come from" is always the same, the come from bad ideas. If you come up with 20 bad ideas you get one good one.

People think innovation is just having a good idea but a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of things.

Renewable energy is proven technology, the price is dropping, the rest of the world is going that way, that's where our investment should be going as well.

I can always see ways to improve what I've done. At the same time, knowing it's all an ongoing life's work allows me to be less precious about blind alleys, failed experiments, and misfires.

Microsoft has had its success by doing low-cost products and constantly improving those products and we've really redefined the IT industry to be something that's about a tool for individuals.

My commitment is to produce at the cheapest price and the best quality.

Do it, fix it, try it.

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.

Young people of this century, like my son, didn't live through all those things that went on during that period of time, from 1930 to 1950. They're missing that experience. To go from a bicycle to a vehicle that takes somebody to the moon - only we saw this kind of thing.

What was true then and what is true now is that we create technology so others can create more technology.