You intentionally start small, because you will not be able to compete with an incumbent... because the incumbent is always going to go for the full solution.
Entrepreneurship is essentially identifying the path that everyone takes; and choosing a different, better way.
If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the results are subpar, this is the time to ask, What if I did the opposite? Don't follow a model that doesn't work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn't matter how good a cook you are.
At News Corporation, we have a history of challenging media orthodoxies.
You can't replicate Seamless or OpenTable for another industry.
The thing I learned from Travis Kalanick, Elon, and others is they don't spend their time thinking about competition. They think about what they're going to build next.
Trying to do what your competitors are doing but basically a little bit better is probably not going to be the winning strategy. The problem is finding what your competitors wouldn't even consider doing.
The concept of disruption is about competitive response; it is not a theory of growth. It's adjacent to growth. But it's not about growth.
Whether by design or circumstance, every startup will eventually get disrupted.
In a large successful company where your power base as CEO isn't all that secure, it's hard for a CEO to pursue a truly disruptive strategy.
