Larry Downes Books

Through years of research, Paul and I distilled what appeared at first as chaos into a four-stage lifecycle—one that repeats across markets: Singularity, Big Bang, Big Crunch, and Entropy. In the Singularity phase, the seeds of disruption germinate invisibly. Technologies converge and innovators e...

From Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation

Disruption has always been part of business, but what makes our era “devastating” is the convergence of enabling technologies. Computing power, cloud infrastructure, mobile connectivity, social platforms, and analytics no longer advance separately—they amplify one another. Each new capability drives...

From Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation

Every successful business begins with a core idea that creates value for customers. Over time, this core becomes the heart of the company’s operations, but eventually, it may also become its greatest limitation. In our research, we call this the Value Gap—the widening disconnect between where a comp...

From Pivot to the Future: Discovering Value and Creating Growth in a Disrupted World

To close the Value Gap, organizations need a structured way to see and manage their activities. Through years of study and collaboration with leading firms, we developed a framework of Three Value Zones: the Old, the Now, and the New. These zones represent distinct stages of value creation—each dema...

From Pivot to the Future: Discovering Value and Creating Growth in a Disrupted World