Adam Smith Revisited and the Emergent Disruption of Democracy in America IK/CMH: In our years of exploring disruptive innovation with Clay Christensen, we often found ourselves applying his insights to unexpected domains. Today, we’re seeing a pattern that would have fascinated Clay: what we’re calling the “Tragedy of the Elite”—a disruptive twist on Garrett Hardin’s classic “tragedy of the commons.”…

“Ah! Five strings, three notes, two hands and one asshole”. – Keith Richards asked to explain Open G Tuning In the late 1960’s, as best Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards can remember, it happened on a break during a recording session for the album Sticky Fingers (1969). The session was attended by guitar virtuoso Ry Cooder who played slide guitar…

By Craig Hatkoff and Irwin Kula August 17, 2024 GLOSSARY:–FACT- Factually Accurate Claim of Truth –FICT- Factually Inaccurate Claim of Truth –FUCT- Factually Unverifiable Claim of Truth –OUTRIGHT LIE– Factually Ridiculous Claim of Truth In the United States, political lies have become a central feature of public life, and trust in democratic institutions has plunged to historic lows. The cascade…

The Following is an excerpt from an Off White Paper published back on April 27, 2014. It was the final piece penned with our guiding light, the late Professor Clayton Christensen. This excerpt is part of a larger discussion of accountability that focuses on the role of religion as a set of accountability technologies. The Ten Commandment is one of…

by Craig Hatkoff, Rabbi Irwin Kula with Professor Clayton M. Christensen (This is a previously unpublished article from August 2010 being released in memory of Clay’s passing in light of the emerging COVID19 crisis.) When Risk Goes Asymmetric Strange Things Can Happen About the culture at his previous gold trading firm, J. Aron, subsequently purchased by Goldman Sachs, former Goldman…

From Black Sholes to Black Holes: Paradigm Shift-Drift-Rift As every MBA knows or should know, there are perhaps four bedrock analytical tools of modern finance: i) Net Present Value (NPV); ii) Internal Rate of Return (IRR); iii) Black Sholes Option Pricing Model (Black-Sholes); and, iv) the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). As global interest rates, risk-free and risk-adjusted, have approached…

“A professor, a rabbi and an entrepreneur walk into a bar….”  As it turns out, the professor doesn’t drink, and the “bar” is the Harvard Business School Faculty Dining Room. Otherwise, what has been a running joke for years, is a true story. The year was 2007 when we met with Professor Clay Christensen for a remarkable lunch.  The “we”…

The expression paradigm shift first appeared in 1962 in Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the most important and cited works in all of academia. Kuhn examined the process of how, why and when the scientific establishment embraces new models or paradigms of how the world works. Kuhn claims that in normal science when there…

Embracing Mizan: From the Grand Mosque to the Burke-Paine Great Debates to the Moody Blues and Koyaanisqatsi: balance is always the right problem-solution. The famous African proverb tells us “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” For traditional cultures wrestling with the impact of the break-neck rate of technological change, this…