Meanings
- The observation that well-established companies tend to concentrate on improving existing products, leaving them vulnerable to new competitors and disruptive technologies.
Some of the best pre-mortems for Steve Ballmer, out-going CEO of Microsoft, have chalked up the company's problem to the "innovator's dilemma."
2013 August 28, Derek Thompson, “How Goliaths Beat Themselves: Microsoft's Mobile Failure and the Innovator's Dilemma”, in The Atlantic1 more example
The generous reading of all this is that recent films and their creators became victims, essentially, of the innovator's dilemma: They got too good at obeying their own, once-successful formulas—and failed to see beyond them.
2014 July 9, Megan Garber, “When Harry Met eHarmony”, in The Atlantic
Origin
Described in the 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma by American business consultant Clayton Christensen.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
innovator's dilemma. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/innovator's%20dilemma
“innovator's dilemma.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/innovator's%20dilemma. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “innovator's dilemma,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/innovator's%20dilemma.
Source: innovator's dilemma on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.