Disruption Rhetoric: How Silicon Valley's Favorite Word Became an Ideology
In 2014, Uber launched UberX in Portland, Oregon, without obtaining the taxi licenses that the city required for commercial passenger vehicles. When city officials demanded that Uber comply with existing regulations, Uber's response was not to apply for the licenses. Instead, the company mobilized its users to flood city officials with messages opposing "outdated regulations that stifle innovation," framed the city's licensing requirements as protection for an entrenched taxi cartel, and continued operating illegally while negotiating regulatory exceptions. The strategy worked. Portland created a new regulatory framework specifically accommodating Uber's business model.
This was disruption rhetoric in action--not a theory of innovation, not an economic analysis, not a policy argument, but a rhetorical strategy that frames any business challenge to existing institutions as progressive innovation and any regulatory constraint as backward-looking obstruction. The language of disruption has become so pervasive in business, technology, and policy discourse that its rhetorical function has become nearly invisible. When a company says it is "disrupting" an industry, it is not making a neutral descriptive statement. It is deploying a carefully constructed narrative that positions the company as an agent of inevitable progress and positions anyone who questions, regulates, or opposes the company as an enemy of the future.
Understanding disruption rhetoric--where it comes from, how it works, what it conceals, and when it is and is not appropriate--is essential for anyone navigating a business landscape saturated with the language of disruption.
Where Does Disruption Language Come From?
The Academic Origins
The concept of disruptive innovation was developed by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma. Christensen's theory was specific, empirically grounded, and carefully limited in scope:
A disruptive innovation is a product or service that initially targets overlooked or underserved market segments with a simpler, cheaper, or more convenient offering. The product is typically inferior to existing offerings on the dimensions that mainstream customers value most, but superior on dimensions that a neglected segment values (usually price, simplicity, or convenience). Over time, the disruptive product improves until it satisfies mainstream customers' requirements, at which point it displaces the incumbent.
Christensen's canonical example was the disk drive industry, where each new generation of smaller drives initially targeted a different market segment (mainframes to minicomputers to PCs to laptops) before eventually displacing the larger drives that preceded them. He also applied the theory to steel mini-mills, mechanical excavators, and discount retailers.
Several features of Christensen's original theory are worth noting because they are consistently abandoned in popular disruption rhetoric:
- Disruption is not a compliment. In Christensen's framework, disruption is a specific market dynamic, not a moral virtue. A disruptive product is initially worse than existing products on the dimensions that matter most to mainstream customers.
- Not all innovation is disruption. Christensen explicitly distinguished between sustaining innovation (improving existing products for existing customers) and disruptive innovation (creating new products for new or underserved customers). Most innovation is sustaining, not disruptive.
- Disruption is not inevitable. Christensen's theory explained why incumbents sometimes fail in the face of disruptive entrants, not that they always do. Many disruptive attacks fail. Many incumbents successfully respond.
- Disruption says nothing about whether the outcome is good. The theory describes a market dynamic. Whether the resulting disruption benefits or harms society is a separate question that the theory does not address.
The Rhetorical Transformation
Between Christensen's 1997 publication and the mid-2010s, "disruption" underwent a transformation from a specific academic theory into a general-purpose rhetorical device:
- From specific to universal: Any business challenge to any existing institution became "disruption," regardless of whether it matched Christensen's criteria
- From descriptive to prescriptive: Disruption went from describing what sometimes happens to prescribing what should happen--disrupting became a goal, not merely a phenomenon
- From neutral to moral: Disruption went from a morally neutral market dynamic to a moral imperative--disruption was good, resistance to disruption was bad
- From analytical to ideological: The language of disruption went from a tool for understanding market dynamics to an ideology justifying specific business practices and regulatory positions
Christensen himself was troubled by this transformation. In a 2015 Harvard Business Review article, he complained that "disruption" had been "widely misunderstood" and applied indiscriminately to situations that bore no resemblance to his theory.
How Is Disruption Rhetoric Used?
Disruption rhetoric operates through several interlocking rhetorical strategies.
Framing Regulation as Obstruction
The most consequential use of disruption rhetoric is to frame regulatory compliance as backward-looking obstruction of inevitable progress:
- Taxi regulations become "protection for an entrenched monopoly" rather than consumer safety and driver labor standards
- Financial regulations become "barriers to innovation" rather than safeguards against fraud and systemic risk
- Housing regulations become "restrictions that prevent the sharing economy" rather than zoning laws and safety codes
- Employment law becomes "outdated classification that doesn't fit the new economy" rather than worker protections developed over a century of labor struggle
This framing is extraordinarily effective because it casts the disruptor as a champion of consumers and progress while casting regulators as defenders of incumbents and the status quo. The framing conceals the fact that regulations often exist to protect genuine public interests (safety, fairness, stability, worker welfare) that the "disruptor" may be violating for profit.
Creating Inevitability Narratives
Disruption rhetoric frames change as inevitable--not a choice that society makes but a force of nature that cannot be resisted:
- "You can't stop progress"
- "The future is coming whether you like it or not"
- "Adapt or die"
- "The disruption train has left the station"
These inevitability narratives serve a specific rhetorical purpose: they shift the burden of justification from the disruptor to the critic. If disruption is inevitable, then questioning it is not just wrong but futile--wasted effort that merely delays the unavoidable. This framing delegitimizes opposition by making it seem irrational rather than principled.
The Progress Narrative
Disruption rhetoric embeds business activity within a narrative of historical progress in which each disruption represents an advance in human welfare:
- The horse-and-buggy industry was disrupted by the automobile (progress!)
- The telegraph was disrupted by the telephone (progress!)
- Blockbuster was disrupted by Netflix (progress!)
- Therefore, the taxi industry being disrupted by Uber is... progress!
This analogical reasoning is compelling but logically flawed. The fact that some past disruptions produced clear benefits does not mean that all future disruptions will produce benefits. Each disruption has its own specific mix of benefits and costs, winners and losers, and intended and unintended consequences. The progress narrative discourages analysis of these specifics by importing a pre-formed conclusion: disruption equals progress.
Urgency and FOMO
Disruption rhetoric creates urgency that discourages careful deliberation:
- "If we don't disrupt ourselves, someone else will"
- "The window of opportunity is closing"
- "First-mover advantage"
- "Move fast or be left behind"
This urgency serves the interests of disruptors who benefit from action and are harmed by deliberation. Careful analysis of costs, benefits, and alternatives takes time--time during which the disruptor cannot operate, grow, and establish market position. By creating urgency, disruption rhetoric discourages the careful analysis that might reveal problems with the disruptive proposition.
What Is Problematic About Disruption Rhetoric?
Assumes All Change Is Good
The most fundamental problem with disruption rhetoric is its implicit equation of change with improvement. Not all change is improvement. Some changes benefit some people while harming others. Some changes produce short-term gains at the cost of long-term losses. Some changes that appear progressive actually represent regressions in worker welfare, consumer protection, environmental sustainability, or democratic governance.
Disruption rhetoric obscures these complexities by framing all disruption as inherently positive. When a company "disrupts" an industry, the assumption is that the old way was bad and the new way is better. This assumption is sometimes correct and sometimes catastrophically wrong.
Hides the Distribution of Costs and Benefits
Even when disruption does produce net benefits, those benefits are rarely distributed equally. The language of disruption focuses exclusively on the benefits (cheaper rides, more convenience, innovative products) while concealing the costs (driver exploitation, regulatory evasion, community destruction, privacy invasion):
| Disruption | Claimed Benefits | Hidden Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Ride-sharing | Cheaper, more convenient rides | Driver classification as contractors, undermining public transit |
| Short-term rentals | More lodging options, income for hosts | Housing cost increases, neighborhood disruption, regulatory evasion |
| Gig economy | Flexible work, consumer convenience | Worker precarity, loss of benefits, wage suppression |
| Social media | Free communication, connection, information | Mental health impacts, misinformation, surveillance capitalism |
| Fintech disruption | Financial inclusion, convenience | Predatory lending, regulatory arbitrage, systemic risk |
Disruption rhetoric allows the beneficiaries of disruption (usually the disruptive company and its investors, and sometimes consumers) to claim credit for the benefits while externalizing the costs onto people who have no voice in the disruption narrative (usually workers, communities, and the environment).
Frames Ethics as Obstacles
Perhaps the most dangerous feature of disruption rhetoric is its tendency to frame ethical concerns as obstacles to progress rather than legitimate constraints on business behavior:
- Concerns about worker welfare become "resistance to the new economy"
- Concerns about privacy become "overregulation that stifles innovation"
- Concerns about safety become "protectionism that prevents progress"
- Concerns about democratic governance become "bureaucratic interference"
This framing makes it socially costly to raise ethical objections. The person who asks "but what about the workers?" or "but what about privacy?" is positioned as a Luddite, a protector of incumbent interests, or simply someone who "doesn't get it." Disruption rhetoric creates a discursive environment in which ethical criticism is stigmatized rather than welcomed.
Is All Disruption Actually Disruptive Innovation?
Christensen himself repeatedly argued that most of what is called "disruption" in popular discourse does not qualify as disruptive innovation under his theory.
What Is Not Disruptive Innovation
Sustaining innovation that improves existing products for existing customers is not disruptive. A better smartphone camera is sustaining innovation, not disruption, because it serves the same customers in the same market with an improved version of the same product.
Regulatory arbitrage that achieves competitive advantage by avoiding compliance costs that competitors bear is not disruptive innovation. A company that is cheaper than competitors because it classifies workers as independent contractors (avoiding employment taxes, benefits, and protections) has not innovated--it has found a way to avoid costs that its competitors pay.
Platform intermediation that inserts a digital platform between existing buyers and sellers is not automatically disruptive innovation. Many "disruptive" platforms do not create new markets or serve underserved customers--they simply extract a fee from transactions that were already occurring.
Cheaper through externalization is not disruptive innovation. A company that offers lower prices by pushing costs onto workers (lower wages, no benefits), communities (noise, congestion, housing impacts), or the environment (pollution, waste) has not innovated--it has found a way to make someone else pay for its product.
What Is Disruptive Innovation
Genuine disruptive innovation involves:
- Creating a new product or service that initially targets an underserved or unserved market segment
- Offering something simpler, cheaper, or more convenient than existing options
- Gradually improving until it satisfies mainstream customers
- Displacing incumbents who failed to adapt
Netflix disrupting Blockbuster was genuine disruption: Netflix initially served a niche (people who preferred mail-order DVD rental), offered something simpler and cheaper (no late fees, no trips to the store), gradually improved (streaming), and displaced the incumbent. Uber disrupting taxis is a more contested case: Uber offered a better experience in many ways, but much of its competitive advantage came from regulatory avoidance and investor-subsidized pricing rather than from genuine innovation in the transportation service itself.
How Does Disruption Language Affect Policy?
The influence of disruption rhetoric on public policy is one of its most consequential effects.
Regulatory Capture Through Narrative
Traditional regulatory capture occurs when regulated industries gain influence over their regulators through lobbying, campaign contributions, and revolving-door employment. Disruption rhetoric enables a different form of capture: narrative capture, in which the disruptor's framing of the regulatory question becomes the dominant public narrative.
When Uber frames taxi regulation as "protectionism for taxi cartels," the public debate shifts from "how should we regulate commercial passenger vehicles?" to "should we protect innovation or protect taxi monopolies?" The latter question has an obvious answer (innovation, of course!) that obscures the legitimate regulatory questions about safety, labor standards, and consumer protection that the original regulations addressed.
The Burden of Proof Shift
Disruption rhetoric shifts the burden of proof from the disruptor to the regulator:
- Under traditional regulatory logic, a new entrant must demonstrate that its practices are safe, fair, and compliant before being allowed to operate
- Under disruption logic, a new entrant operates first and challenges regulators to justify stopping it--"prove that our innovation is harmful rather than requiring us to prove it's safe"
This burden shift has been explicitly advocated by some Silicon Valley leaders and implicitly practiced by many technology companies. It represents a fundamental challenge to the precautionary principle that underlies much regulation: the principle that activities with potential for harm should be restricted until they are demonstrated to be safe.
The Innovation Exception
Disruption rhetoric has created what amounts to an innovation exception in public discourse: if an activity is labeled "innovative" or "disruptive," it receives more lenient treatment--from regulators, from media, from the public--than the same activity would receive without the innovation label.
A traditional payday lender charging high interest rates to low-income borrowers is predatory. A fintech startup doing the same thing through an app is "disrupting financial services." The activity is identical; the rhetorical framing determines the public response.
When Is Disruption Language Appropriate?
Disruption rhetoric is not always inappropriate. There are contexts in which the language of disruption accurately describes what is happening and serves constructive purposes.
When Genuinely New Value Is Created
When a business creates genuinely new value--serving customers who were previously unserved, solving problems that were previously unsolved, or making valuable goods and services accessible to people who previously could not access them--the language of disruption may be appropriate:
- Mobile banking that provides financial services to unbanked populations in developing countries
- Telemedicine that provides healthcare access to rural patients who cannot reach specialists
- Online education that provides learning opportunities to people who cannot attend traditional institutions
- Renewable energy technologies that displace fossil fuel generation with cleaner alternatives
In these cases, the disruption creates genuine social value, the benefits are broadly distributed, and the costs (to incumbent industries) are outweighed by the benefits (to previously underserved populations).
When Incumbents Are Genuinely Failing
Sometimes existing industries are genuinely failing to serve their customers, and the entry of new competitors using different models genuinely improves outcomes. When the taxi industry in a particular city is genuinely providing poor service--dirty vehicles, rude drivers, refusal to serve certain neighborhoods, inability to find a cab when needed--the entry of a ride-sharing service that addresses these failures may legitimately be described as disruption.
The key distinction is between disruption that solves genuine problems and disruption that creates artificial advantages through regulatory evasion, worker exploitation, or investor subsidization.
The Alternative to Disruption Rhetoric
What would business and technology discourse look like without the distortions of disruption rhetoric?
Acknowledging Tradeoffs
Every business change involves tradeoffs--winners and losers, benefits and costs, improvements and regressions. Language that acknowledges these tradeoffs honestly is more accurate and more useful than language that frames change as unambiguously positive:
- "Our product is cheaper because we've found efficiencies, and because we classify workers as contractors rather than employees" is more honest than "We're disrupting an industry"
- "We're providing new choices for consumers, and our model raises questions about housing availability and neighborhood character" is more honest than "We're disrupting the hospitality industry"
- "Our technology enables faster communication, and it creates new possibilities for surveillance and manipulation" is more honest than "We're disrupting how the world connects"
Discussing Distribution
Language that addresses who benefits and who bears costs from business changes is more socially useful than language that discusses only aggregate benefits:
- Who gains from this innovation? Who loses?
- Are the gains concentrated among wealthy investors and consumers while the costs are borne by workers and communities?
- Could the innovation be structured to distribute benefits more broadly or costs more equitably?
Engaging with Regulation
Language that treats regulation as a legitimate expression of public interest rather than an obstacle to progress enables more productive conversation about how to balance innovation with public welfare:
- What legitimate interests does this regulation protect?
- Can those interests be protected while also allowing innovation?
- What would responsible innovation look like in this regulated space?
- How should the benefits and costs of the innovation be distributed?
The language we use to describe business and technology shapes the policies we adopt, the businesses we build, and the societies we create. Disruption rhetoric has served the interests of companies seeking to avoid regulation and criticism while pursuing aggressive growth. A more honest, nuanced, and accountable language of business change would serve the broader interests of the societies in which those businesses operate--acknowledging that innovation is valuable, that change is sometimes necessary, and that the question is never simply whether to disrupt but how to change in ways that serve human flourishing broadly rather than enriching a few at the expense of many.
References and Further Reading
Christensen, C. (1997). The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business School Press. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
Christensen, C., Raynor, M. & McDonald, R. (2015). "What Is Disruptive Innovation?" Harvard Business Review, 93(12), 44-53. https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation
Lepore, J. (2014). "The Disruption Machine: What the Gospel of Innovation Gets Wrong." The New Yorker, June 23, 2014. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine
Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform Capitalism. Polity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_capitalism
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capitalism
Rosenblat, A. (2018). Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. University of California Press. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520324800/uberland
Morozov, E. (2013). To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. PublicAffairs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Morozov
Dayen, D. (2020). Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power. The New Press. https://thenewpress.com/books/monopolized
Thiel, P. (2014). Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. Crown Business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_to_One
King, A.A. & Baatartogtokh, B. (2015). "How Useful Is the Theory of Disruptive Innovation?" MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(1), 77-90. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-useful-is-the-theory-of-disruptive-innovation/
Uber Technologies, Inc. (2019). SEC Form S-1 Filing. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&company=uber
Wu, T. (2018). The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. Columbia Global Reports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu