Disruptive Change vs Augmentation

jordangonen
Jul 28, 2017 · 1 min read

I think that the “Silicon Valley” brand emphasizes “disruptive technologies” aka ones that completely undermine industries and flip things on their backs. Total world shifters — mind benders — things that you only see in movies that truly are able to shift the world.

I think that we far too often think of successful companies only as disruptors. I think that the companies of the future, in an optimistic view point, will be augments of our current state rather than disruptors.

The reality is that many industries today have lots of friction. There are tons of moving parts and complex pieces. There are middle men. There are dependencies. There are relational components.

The world is complex.

When tech decides to one day get involved in some of these boring, yet very financially lucrative industries — what do we think will happen?

Why is it that we think tech can just go in and disrupt everything.

I think the reality, and often the best and most practical utilization of the technology we have at our disposal is not to replace, but rather augment. We can make people 10x better at their jobs. They will be 10x faster. 10x smarter with 10x more information.

There are often very complex reasons that people exist within an industry. Sometimes those reasons should be challenged and can be disrupted by tech.

But far more often, those reasons are extremely difficult problems to replace.

So build to augment, not only disrupt.


Originally published at gonen.blog.

    jordangonen

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    think for yourself. https://gonen.blog/ views mine.

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