Horace Dediu

If the internet makes me smarter, it is people like Horace Dediu that help make the internet smarter.

Among other things, Horace Dediu is a blogger and financial analyst. I discovered his work in the spring or summer of 2010. He had been mentioned in a Fortune Online article as one of the top independent analysts critiquing Apple Inc.’s performance. As I followed him through the ensuing months and years, I realized that his ideas held much more value to me than just for determining whether to buy or sell shares of Apple stock.

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Giants

By way of extended self-introduction, I plan on posting about those I consider positive influences. If I have seen any distance at all, it is by standing on the shoulders of these giants. This first post is about a book I consider essential reading. It is also about its author, whom I consider brilliant.

The Book

I read “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (by Clayton Christensen) towards the end of 2009. Although it was first published in 1997, it felt like a history of the ten years just passed. It has since helped me set a course for my career. I wish I had known of it earlier.

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The Story

This happened a long time ago.

I was trying to get out of the office. It was Christmas season, my first with my company. I was on my first big project, at our company’s biggest client. However, my project task list was pretty much cleared. I was ready to take a week or so of downtime before the new year began. I had just a little bit of work left cleaning up and testing a program before moving it into production. It was early afternoon mid-week and I was looking forward to an upcoming, long, relaxing weekend. That was when my manager came up to me. He had that look on his face. You know the look.

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