Blow Up Your Business Before Someone Else Does

In the early 1980s, Steve Jobs and a few Apple executives visited the Xerox Corporation to see a new technology they had developed. It was called the Graphic User Interface or GUI – it allowed people to interact with a computer through a series of pictures and icons instead of having to know .dos or some other computer language.

At the time of the visit, Apple was hard at work developing the Lisa – it was to be their next big idea after the Apple II. They had poured millions of dollars and an exorbitant amount of time and sweat into developing the Lisa. But this graphic user interface was a revolutionary idea…and the young Steve Jobs knew it.

Like Kodak, who invented the digital camera in the 1970s but suppressed the technology for fear that it would eat away at film sales, so too was Xerox suppressing their idea for fear it too would cannibalize their existing business.

Jobs pulled aside his executives and told them that he wanted to abandon the Lisa and develop the graphic user interface instead. Shocked, one of his executives exclaimed, “but Steve, if we do that, we’ll blow up our own business.”  To which Jobs replied, “better we should blow it up than someone else.”

Apple abandoned the Lisa and, a few years later, in 1984, introduced the Macintosh; a move that would revolutionize the entire computer industry.

Steve Jobs was not unique in his ability to see great ideas. Kodak and Xerox both saw the power of their respective innovations. So much so, in fact, that they worked to keep them hidden knowing full well the impact their technologies would have. What made Jobs a remarkable leader was not his ability to simply see great ideas but to seize them, even if it meant abandoning work already done and money already spent. He would often quote Wayne Gretzky,  who said, "a good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be." And that's exactly what Jobs believed. What’s the point of continuing to pour money into an idea that will be dead on arrival? Cut your losses and blow up your own business before someone else does. Don't play where the market is, play where it's going to be.

The music industry refused to blow up their own business. They worked hard to sell albums in a digital world that wanted to buy songs, only to have Apple blow up their businesses with iTunes.

Publishing refuses to blow up their own business leaving them exposed to an online retailer, Amazon, to blow it up for them.

A great idea is a great idea and great ideas cannot be suppressed…at least not forever. The ones who get to profit from the great ideas, however, are not the one who develop them necessarily, but the ones willing to embrace those ideas before anyone else does.

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Comments

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I don't see him progressing just about any further than that.

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This is a very solid thought. I think the gas/oil industry could learn something from this idea in the pursuit of a 'greener' energy source. The technology is here and that industry has the opportunity to be a front runner in implementing it, but just as you said, they have to be willing to 'blow up their business.”

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"...but the ones willing to embrace those ideas before anyone else does." So true!

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Very cool idea. I think I will have to try this one. I just love the "It's the Little Things" line. Thanks!

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[Belinda]

"A great idea is a great idea and great ideas cannot be suppressed…at least not forever. The ones who get to profit from the great ideas, however, are not the one who develop them necessarily, but the ones willing to embrace those ideas before anyone else does." I couldn't agree more. Nice article and kudos to those who envision the future while everyone else is going about the present.

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[Kevin Gamble]

Not that it's central to the point of your post, but the Apple Lisa had a graphical user interface. Jobs visited Xerox Parc in 1979, where he first saw a GUI (and a mouse) and brought those back to Apple.

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Embrace the ideas before some one else does. Great article. Thanks Simon

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[Gary Ares]

I'm a fan of forward thinkers/visionaries, and have adopted a simple view of change. It's happening at the relative speed of light compared to only a century ago. So, don't get attached to any of the shiny new technology, because they are all like neutrinos in the scheme of how their rapid life span is.

Here's one for you... WHY did Cisco blow up the FLIP camera that was doing so well in the market? Maybe they learned the lesson the Kodak and Xerox missed?

[Venkat]

Great post Mr.Sinek. I am not thinking about oil companies but my own.

Thanks for the input.

[Steph Davis]

So sad that Rochester, NY has faced both Kodak and Xerox's downfall! On to a new age of thinking big and looking out for the good of others and society - not just ourselves.

[Greg Merrill]

The problem with the 'green' energy sources is they are all much more expensive and/or less reliable than coal/nuclear/gas/oil

That's one reason they are called 'alternative' energies and are constantly asking for public assistance in either direct subsidies (like Solyndra) or implicit subsidies like the X% renewable mandate in state laws (California for example)

[Wesley Sprague]

This is a very solid thought. I think the gas/oil industry could learn something from this idea in the pursuit of a 'greener' energy source. The technology is here and that industry has the opportunity to be a front runner in implementing it, but just as you said, they have to be willing to 'blow up their business.”

Even further, if they refuse to, someone else will take care of it for them.

Here’s to the underdog.

[james oh]

"...but the ones willing to embrace those ideas before anyone else does." So true!