Business models

I’ve had a lot of good business writing come my way of recent. First, although I am still gradually working my way through it, is Craig W. Kirkwood’s “System Dynamics Methods: A Quick Introduction“. Second is Dharmesh Shah’s OnStartups blog. From there I read a recommendation for Professor Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma“. This begins charmingly with this paragraph:

When I began my search for an answer to the puzzle of why the best firms can fail, a friend offered some sage advice. “Those who study genetics avoid studying humans,” he noted. “Because new generations come along only every thirty years or so, it takes a long time to understand the cause and effect of any changes. Instead, they study fruit flies, because they are conceived, born, mature, and die all within a single day. If you want to understand why something happens in business, study the disk drive industry. Those companies are the closest things to fruit flies that the business world will ever see.”