Why Did BlackBerry Fail?
The Keyboard Kings Who Laughed at Glass
📜 What Happened
BlackBerry owned mobile email — 50% US smartphone share, presidents and CEOs addicted to the keyboard. When the iPhone launched, co-CEO Mike Lazaridis reportedly took one apart in disbelief but the company's verdict was public confidence: businesspeople need physical keys; a virtual keyboard can't do real work; carriers would never allow such data hogs. Every quarter of denial armed Apple and Android further. By 2013, the OS was a rounding error.
☠️ The Fatal Mistake
Graded the iPhone against THEIR definition of a phone (keys, battery, enterprise security) while customers were redefining the category as a pocket computer.
🧠 The Lesson (Free for You)
Your strengths define your blind spot: whatever made you king is exactly what you'll defend past its expiry. When the category redefines, expertise in the old definition is a liability with a pension.
📕 The Antidote Book
Christensen's Harvard research began with a paradox: why do well-run market leaders — companies that listen to customers, invest in R&D, and chase profits rationally — get destroyed by scrappy newcomers with WORSE…
📖 OPEN THE FULL INTERACTIVE BREAKDOWN →Searchable, filterable, free to read — they paid billions; your lesson is free.