11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era

Chapter 11: Levers

Since I began writing and speaking about my ideas, many people have publicly and privately asked, “Doesn’t this just mean the 800-pound gorilla dies?” Sort of like brontosauruses before them, they are unable to outrun the asteroid that hit the earth. Certainly, the people in the start-up world, many of whom already embody fast, fluid, flexible attributes, believe that the established players are fated to die. But one can look at the history of the dinosaurs and see that not all of them did die. Paleontologists have suggested that they are actually all around us today, as birds.

Applied to today’s gorillas, the analogy probably holds. The species that adapt to the changes in the environment faster will surely do better. What ...