My Experiences with Clay Christensen

link to the article shown above

link to Harvard Business School’s obituary for Clay

I am sad to hear of Clay Christensen’s passing. For those who don’t already know, Clay was one of the most famous business gurus in the world, and one whose work should be of special interest to economists. I have written many blog posts and one Quartz article related to Clay and his work:

• In Defense of Clay Christensen: Even the 'Nicest Man Ever to Lecture' at Harvard Can't Innovate Without Upsetting a Few People xxx

• Saint Clay

• The Coming Transformation of Education: Degrees Won’t Matter Anymore, Skills Will

• Clay Christensen: Religion as a Foundation of Democracy

• Netflix as an Example of Clay Christensen's 'Disruptive Innovation'

• Clay Christensen Explains the Donald Trump Phenomenon: The Job-to-Be-Done Was to Express Frustration

• Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang: How to Divide and Conquer Our Health Care Problems

• Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on the Three Basic Types of Business Models

• Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on Intuitive Medicine vs. Precision Medicine

• Will Narendra Modi’s Economic Reforms Put India on the Road to Being a Superpower?

• Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on the Personal Computer Revolution

• Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on How the History of Other Industries Gives Hope for Health Care

• Tyler Cowen: Regulations Hinder Development of Driverless Cars

• Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on the Agenda for the Transformation of Health Care

• Schumpeter: Digital Disruption on the Farm | The Economist

• Robert Graboyes on Enabling Supply-Side Innovation in Health Care

• Clay Christensen, Jeffrey Flier and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan on How to Make Health Care More Cost Effective

• Andy Rachleff: What "Disrupt" Really Means

Let me tell you how I became such a fan of Clay Christensen. Plane tickets used to be relatively more expensive than they are now. When I was headed to Harvard as a freshman in 1977, I wanted to save money by carpooling from Utah out to Cambridge, Massachusetts. My parents helped me connect with Clay Christensen, who was headed out his first year of the Harvard MBA program. Because the MBA program started a week or so before the Harvard College semester, and I couldn’t get into the dorm that early, I stayed at Clay’s apartment for that time after we got there. (That was when I first learned about decision trees and backwards programming: from the advance homework the MBA program had given Clay.)

Spending that time with Clay gave me a lasting impression. I filed Clay in my mind as one of the kindest human beings I have ever known.

After spending all that time with Clay, I had only passing interactions with him for many years, primarily saying “Hi” at multi-congregation Mormon Church events. Then, after I began blogging, I discovered Clay’s books (many of them coauthored) on disruptive innovation. As you can see above, that work has been a major influence on this blog.

I had an email exchange with Clay after I published “In Defense of Clay Christensen: Even the 'Nicest Man Ever to Lecture' at Harvard Can't Innovate Without Upsetting a Few People” in Quartz. He was a bit puzzled by the criticism I was addressing and disputed Jean-Louis Gassée’s factual claims.

My one other interaction with Clay was indirect: my daughter Diana took his class when she was a student at Harvard Business School. Her reports only reinforced what I had thought of Clay Christensen since 1977: one of the best people I have ever known.

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I am not a fan of death. See my post “Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Dirge Without Music.” Deaths of those I have known have occasioned a number of blog posts:

• My Experiences with Gary Becker

• In Honor of Alan Krueger

• In Honor of Martin Weitzman

• In Honor of Marvin Goodfriend

• Harris Schlesinger

• The Pope and the Prophet: Letting Go

• My Dad

• My Mother

• The Shards of My Heart