Disruption causes stampedes

History of business is filled with funny stories of big shot managers turning down ‘crummy products’ where the ‘crummy product’ becomes the next big thing. Westinghouse turning down Graham Bell’s ‘telephone’ is one example. The history of computers (labeled ‘fruit flies’ by Christensen since change of generations occurs so fast like fruit flies allowing good case examples to study) is filled with this.

Here is a scene from Pirates of Silicon Valley when the personal computer is rejected as a crummy product.

Here is another scene of the public response to the Apple computer.

And this is the public response at E3 2006 when the Wii was unveiled.

(Alas, Kotaku’s video of the ‘stampede’ of people rushing in and all going to the Wii booth is no longer online so I’m going to have to settle for a line video.)

You never realize you are in living history when you are right in the middle of it.

(Also, this makes me realize that a ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley’ type movie could be made about the console industry.)