[brothe2000]

I think the author of the article went looking for stats to support a title. Corporate America has been disrupted however I think this article was looking for financial failure versus adapting to the market pressures.

The corporations below have faced massive disruption:

Kodak, HP, GM, Ford, JC Penney, Sears, McDonalds, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Best Buy, Borders, Barnes&Noble, IBM, Microsoft, Xerox, and Target have all been disrupted.

But most of them have adapted as the market changed because they had the resources to do so.

A small company has fewer resources so when adversity hits (housing crash in 2008) or the market shifts (Digital music versus record stores), those business are less likely to be able to shift.

Regarding the comments in the article on Entrepreneurs:

I think the article is using too much of the 2000's data to make a correlation to today. 2001 - 2010 was the dot com bubble, 9/11, unemployment at 9%, and the housing / financial crisis. Banks weren't lending money and people had little capital to borrow.

Compared to today: Banks are lending again, unemployment is 6.2%, people are spending and earning more, and everywhere you read about startups and entrepreneurs.

One last thing: I find it humorous when articles say that government regulations, licensure, or taxes prevent innovation and entrepreneurial activity. I have never heard somebody say "I'd totally build X but the tax incentives just aren't high enough".

[GeneralMayhem]

>I have never heard somebody say "I'd totally build X but the tax incentives just aren't high enough".

I read it more as "I'd totally build X but I have no idea how to do it legally or even how to learn what the legal requirements are." Much easier to work for a big company that can afford full-time lawyers.

[brothe2000]

I think some times startups say "I know this is the law but it's outdated and let's see what happens..."

Sometimes it's bad: Aereo Sometimes it's controversial: Uber / Lyft

But for the most part I think people act and then find out after the fact they did something wrong or not in alignment with expectations.

For example, is Soylent worried about somebody dying? Probably but that didn't stop them from doing what they are doing.

[aestetix]

Ok. Kodak wasn't really disrupted so much as its market base moved to digital cameras. I suppose you can claim that retail has been disrupted by online markets like Amazon, but (to take an example) there were a lot of reports that Borders went under because of crap management. Radio Shack is still around, and with open doors to anyone who needs a cell phone ;) IBM and Microsoft haven't really been disrupted...

It seems like you're pooling together a bunch of companies that are seeing misfortune for a variety of reasons and assuming they have all been "disrupted". Further, the context of the comment implies they were disrupted by startups, which I don't think is true at all.

I'm happy to admit I'm wrong if you can give more evidence, but this comment seems a bit misguided.

[brothe2000]

True... I guess the point is that the claim that startups haven't disrupted corporations is true in bulk but when you pick each company it is easy to see an impact a startup has had in changing how they operate.

Flickr definitely contributed to Kodak failing as much as the market for digital cameras. Kodak actually had digital technology but failed to capitalize on it.

Borders may have bad management but so do startups that fail which maybe says startups need better management too? Seems like a common denominator versus differentiator?

Radio Shack closed a ton of stores and is still losing money. IBM stopped selling computers because Dell and others did it better and cheaper (Dell was a startup at one time...) and Microsoft keeps fighting for relevancy in software on all fronts.

But yeah, some of my comments weren't exactly on point. I just think that to say companies aren't disrupted is a broad paint stroke that the article didn't fully support.

[layman]

Kind of agree. The author arbitrarily took 1 year as "startup" and any business longer than 1 year as "establishment". It was probably possible to start and sustain a small business in 1 year earlier, perhaps. But now the world is integrated, and the probability of survival by serving people of your neighborhood or city, is much less. IOW, a business has to grow big and hence it takes longer than 1 year to succeed. So by author's definition, Blockbuster being disrupted by Netflix doesn't count any more because it's establishment displacing establishment.

[waylandsmithers]

I agree, and I think it's especially hard to observe the complete lack of Borders and Barnes & Noble locations remaining and say things haven't changed all that much. For the big players in the music and movie industries, even if they're still profitable, but had to completely change their ways of doing business, doesn't that count as disruption also?

[aestra]

>Kodak, HP, GM, Ford, JC Penney, Sears, McDonalds, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Best Buy, Borders, Barnes&Noble, IBM, Microsoft, Xerox, and Target have all been disrupted.

The irony there is a lot of them started out as disruptors themselves!

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

Who disrupted McDonalds?

[brothe2000]

McDonalds had to compete with coffee shops, places with Wifi, installed RedBox to get people to walk into the place, and the general move toward healthier foods and locally grown food. That's part of the reason they bought into Chipotle.

[zanny]

A lot of his citations are of systemic disruption - in the case of McDonalds, it was disrupted because people stopped taking their diet for granted, and McD's got called out on their atrocious menu.