Geoffrey A. Moore - Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution

PORTFOLIO

DEALING WITH DARWIN

Geoffrey A. Moore is the author of four bestselling, highly influential business books: Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game, and Living on the Fault Line. He has made the understanding and effective exploitation of disruptive technologies the core of his lifes work. He is a managing director with TCG Advisors, a consulting firm specializing in strategy and business transformation service, and a venture partner with Mohr Davidow Ventures. He lives in Los Altos Hills, California.

HOW GREAT COMPANIES INNOVATE AT
EVERY PHASE OF THEIR EVOLUTION

GEOFFREY A. MOORE

PORTFOLIO

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First published in the United States of America by Portfolio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2005

This paperback edition with a new afterword published 2008

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright Geoffrey A. Moore, 2005, 2008

All rights reserved

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THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Moore, Geoffrey A.

Dealing with Darwin : how great companies innovate at every phase of their evolution / Geoffrey A. Moore

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 1-59184-107-0 (hc.)

ISBN 978-1-59184-214-9 (pbk.)

1. Organizational change. 2. Competition. 3. Creative ability in business. 4. Technological innovationsManagement. 5. Industrial management. I. Title.

HD58.8.M633 2005

658.4063dc22 2005054425

Printed in the United States of America

Set in New Baskerville, Din Neuzeit, and Din Mittelschrift

Designed by Dopodomani

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To Marie

Always.

W riting any book is inevitably a journey, but I have to say this one took a more roundabout path to its destination than I had imagined. I remember vividly circulating the first draft to a long list of colleagues, fully expecting a chorus of accolades (we authors lack not for fantasy or hubris). Imagine my chagrin when not a few came back with gentle but unmistakable guidance that I had spread myself all over the map writing a tome that was impossible to follow. That trip to the woodshed was followed by one back to the drawing board, out of which came the text you are about to read. I am very proud of this book, and thus I am deeply grateful to the following people who helped me find it amid the flotsam and jetsam of that first effort:

• My first vote of thanks goes to my fellow partners at TCG AdvisorsPhilip Lay, Lo-Ping Yeh, Tom Kosnik, and John Metcalfewhose contribution to these ideas is so intertwined with my own as to be inextricable. Consulting is a wonderful profession for an author, for clients give you instant feedback on the viability of your ideas. Fellow consultants are then there to help you sort out the good bits from the bad, patch things up, and trot them out again. I have been blessed to have some of the best as colleagues.
• In proximity to this group are my colleagues at Mohr Davidow Ventures, especially my fellow venture partners, Donna Novitsky and Randy Strahan. Both have made wonderfully pragmatic sounding boards for ideas that were anything from formative to just half baked.
• I owe a similar debt of gratitude to my office-sharing companions at The Chasm Group and The Chasm Institute, particularly to Paul Wiefels and Michael Eckhardt, both of whom gave me detailed critiques of the first draft that were extremely helpful.
• But there were others who waded in deep as well. Of these I would like to particularly acknowledge Bill Meade, who meticulously and thoroughly critiqued the entire manuscript; Kevin Kennedy, who forthrightly but considerately communicated to me the incomprehensibility of the first draft; Avery Gavigan, who gave superb advice on ideas and examples from the consumer sector; and Mark Deck, Patrick Gordon, John Ciacchella, and Francis Hawkings, who gave great advice from a consulting perspective.
• Finally, this entire line of thinking got its start in an article opportunity provided by Tom Stewart and Julia Kirby at The Harvard Business Review, Darwin and the Demon. That stimulus and their encouragement were the true seed of this book.

So much for the writing. Then there is the story. And here I owe an extraordinary debt to John Chambers and the entire executive team at Cisco who made themselves accessible to me time and again and shared their innermost thoughts on more than a few volatile subjects. The Cisco case study is for me a highlight of the book that follows because it allowed me to ground a great deal of theory in a real-world context.

After the story comes the editing. Here I have enjoyed the support of a terrific tandem, Jim Levine and Adrian Zackheim, my literary agent and publisher, respectively. When I was lost in the woods between the first and second drafts, it was they who came and found me and helped show the way out. This is our fifth book together, albeit our first at Portfolio, and I am delighted to have their support.

Of course, books dont happen in a vacuum. They have to make their way through a work life littered with other commitments. Here I have the inestimable assistance of one of the worlds great personal assistants, Pat Granger. Pat and I have been working together for more than five years, and it is simply a joy to have her support. And when we have needed to reach out for some extra help, Rita Gray, the other half of the administrative team, has been generous with her support as well.