Clayton Christensen innovator's dilemma research

Tom's daughter Rebecca worked one summer for Christensen at HBS; Tom is cited in *The Innovator's Dilemma* on integrated-steel-mill cost. Tom's 1995 sketch in the Saginaw airport: integrated mill ~$15 billion, mini mill ~$100 million, micro mill smaller still. ## Figures referenced

You could make rebar, but rebar was garden-variety low-quality stuff. And the Bethlehem Steel manager said, "we don't care about mini mills." This is what Clayton Christensen made his name for at Harvard Business School — the innovator's dilemma. Here you have these little mini mills, and one of his three examples is steel technology. My daughter worked researching things for him one summer, and I'm a reference in there on what it cost to build a steel mill. Rebecca came home and said, "Dad, Clayton wants me to find out what it cost to build a steel mill and I can't find it anywhere." This was 1995, and no one had built a steel mill since Bethlehem Steel in 1965. It had only been countries that built them, all mixed in with the government finance.