The Power of Positive Destruction

Chapter 1 Any Industry Can Be Disrupted—Positively

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in business and in life is that the next great transformational idea can come from the least likely of places—and often when you aren’t looking for it. And a technology or a technique, when taken from one industry and applied to another, can be very transformational.

I first learned this from my father, Edward Merrin, a great businessman and extraordinary salesman, albeit an accidental one. By nature my father was more of an artist. That was his passion. When I think about my childhood growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I remember my father always working on his paintings. He did a bit of everything—still lifes, abstracts, and the naked ladies he went to see pose at the Art Students League of New York. On weekends, he went downtown to Greenwich Village with his paintings in tow and tried to sell them. It didn’t go well. Let’s just say that Dad owns the biggest collection of Ed Merrin paintings in the world.

Dad’s real job was in the family business. My grandfather started a jewelry store, Merrin Jewelers, which was in midtown Manhattan, right across the street from Tiffany & Co. Our family business sold more affordable necklaces, bracelets, and rings than the legendary store with the baby blue boxes. Business wasn’t exactly booming. My father worked at Merrin Jewelers from the time he graduated college, but he had little interest in business or in jewelry, and he and ...