Clayton M. Christensen – Author Biography
Early Life
Clayton Magleby Christensen was born on April 6, 1952, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He studied economics at Brigham Young University, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, earned an MBA from Harvard Business School with high distinction, and worked as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group before returning to Harvard for his doctorate in business administration.
Career
Christensen joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1992, where he became the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration. His 1995 Harvard Business Review article with Joseph Bower introduced “disruptive innovation” — and his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma made it the most influential business idea of the modern era. He advised companies and governments worldwide, co-founded the consulting firm Innosight and the education company, and wrote on the purpose of life as well as business. He died on January 23, 2020.
Major Works
The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997), The Innovator’s Solution (2003, with Michael Raynor), Disrupting Class (2008), The Innovator’s Prescription (2009), and How Will You Measure Your Life? (2012, with James Allworth and Karen Dillon) — his beloved application of business theory to personal purpose.
Writing Style and Themes
Christensen wrote rigorous, theory-driven business prose built on deep case research. His central insight: great companies fail not despite doing everything right but because of it — listening to customers and improving existing products blinds them to disruptive technologies that start out worse and cheaper. His “jobs to be done” theory reframed marketing around what customers hire products to do. Beneath the frameworks ran a moral seriousness: he cared about management as stewardship of human lives.
Legacy
“Disruption” is the most overused — and most important — word in modern business, and Christensen coined its precise meaning. The Innovator’s Dilemma is one of the few business books Steve Jobs is known to have deeply admired. His theories shaped strategy at companies from Intel to Netflix, and his writings on purpose influenced a generation of leaders to ask what their lives are for.
