The Pebble and the Avalanche - How Taking Things Apart Creates Revolutions

191 Pages·2005·1.61 MB·English

by  Moshe Yudkowsky

The Pebble and the Avalanche
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The Pebble and
the Avalanche
How Taking Things Apart
Creates Revolutions
Moshe Yudkowsky
The Pebble and the Avalanche
Copyright © 2005 by Moshe Yudkowsky
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First Edition
Hardcover print edition ISBN 978-1-57675-294-4
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-57675-961-5
2008-1
Cover by Crowfoot Design
Interior Design by Dianne Platner
Production by Publication Services
Tomy wife, Rachel, whose love, kindness, patience, and
support made this book possible:
“Many women have accomplished valor,
But you outshine them all.”
Proverbs 31
Tomy children, Eliezer and Channah, for their love, help,
and support over the years:
“He has blessed your children among you.”
Psalms 147
In memory of my son, Yehuda Nattan Yudkowsky:
“Who loved his fellow man, and brought them
close to the Torah.”
Ethics of the Fathers, 1:13
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Contents
ix Preface
xii Acknowledgments
Part I. Disaggregation:
Why the Sum of the Parts Is Greater Than the Whole
Chapter One
3 Disaggregation: The Driving Force of Revolution
Chapter Two
9 Starting Revolutions: What to Take Apart
Chapter Three
21 Benefits of Disaggregation: The Revolutionary’s Bill of Rights
Chapter Four
27 Four Stages to Revolution: Devise, Interface, Accept, Evaluate
Part II. Case Studies:
Two Hundred Years of Revolutions
Chapter Five
43 From Horses and Buggies to Jet Planes: The Revolution in
Manufacturing
Chapter Six
51 The Automobile Takes On the Railroads
Chapter Seven
61 The Internet’s Permanent Revolution
Part III. Business Strategies: How to Cope,
How to Fail, and How to Predict the Future
Chapter Eight
81 Interfaces and Standards: The Nuts and Bolts of
Modern Civilization
Chapter Nine
97 Coping with Surprises
Chapter Ten
107 Marx, Lenin, and Gates: Failed Counterrevolutions
Chapter Eleven
121 The Role of Government
Chapter Twelve
127 Predictions: Three Revolutions in Progress
Chapter Thirteen
143 Getting Started, Finishing Touches
149 Notes
161 Index
171 About Disaggregate
173 About the Author
Preface
This book explains how to understand, create, and apply revolu-
tions in business and technology.
A few years ago, my colleagues and I met at the Boston airport to
discuss the future of our organization, an industry group in the field
of telecommunications. We’d hired a professional moderator to lead
the discussions, and at one point the moderator had us working on the
significant inventions of the past thirty years, the innovations that had
transformed telecommunications. We generated a timeline with some
interesting items on it (you’ll see some of them in Chapter 1), and then
the moderator asked a rather ho-hum, standard question just to move
the conversation along: “What do these inventions have in common?”
The answer hit me like a flash of lighting: Each of the important
inventions and revolutions in our field started, just as the subtitle of
this book says, when people took things apart. The key innovations
really had something in common—something exciting and unexpect-
ed. I jumped up and explained my idea to the group. Everyone nodded,
ix