Kelly talks to Jeff Cole, founder of the World Internet Project – the longest-running global study of online behavior, spanning 27 years in 35 countries. He now directs the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School. He has advised four U.S. presidential administrations, the FCC, Congress, and the Department of Defense, along with global government leaders. He has a new book co-authored with Harlan Lebo – it’s called “Disrupters at the Gate: When Visionaries, Trailblazers, and Two Guys in a Garage Turn the World Upside Down.”

A truth you start with in the book is that disruption is, indeed, disruptive – not just to businesses but to individuals. 

“Disruption is painful. We don’t like being disrupted. Whether we’re individuals during COVID and every way we did everything changed. Whether we’re a company that has to drop the old ways, we don’t like change. 27 years ago, I became convinced the internet was going to change the world. Boy, did I underestimate that. I devoted my time to tracking the Internet and to my friends, not in a necessarily complimentary way, I began to become known as Mr. Internet. And then the dot com meltdown comes in 2001, 2002. And my friends came up to me pretending to be sympathetic. And I think they were, but sort of half smiling, saying, well, what are you going to do now? Now that this internet thing is over? And of course, it wasn’t over. The meltdown was a good thing. It was the end of business plans written on the back of napkins. But what they were showing me was they were elated to think that it was over. Because all of a sudden, they didn’t have to relearn everything they ever did. They didn’t have to retrain and retool their businesses. They didn’t have to go to a 13-year-old boy or girl and ask for advice on technology. So, we find this whole process disruptive.” 

And disruptions are different than innovations? 

“One of the things I do in the book is I just list every company and industry and product I can think of that has been eliminated because of the internet. There are over a hundred. Whether it’s encyclopedias, whether it’s road atlases, it’s even watches, to some degree. Disruption is massive change, turning things upside down; innovation is improvement, sometimes enormous improvement. But you know, one of these massive companies that I think could get themselves in trouble, and it surprises a lot of people, is Apple. Apple under Steve Jobs really did disrupt, although Steve Jobs didn’t invent the smartphone; there had been smartphones. And he didn’t invent the iPad; there had been other tablets, but he did it so well. But Apple, I would argue, ever since Jobs passed away, and no disrespect to Tim Cook, who was a brilliant manager and just stepped down last week, Apple hasn’t had a game changer since Jobs left the scene. What they’ve done, and this is what makes them vulnerable, is they’ve innovated every year, and we’re going to see the new iPhones next week, and I’m not privy to what they’re going to announce, but I can guarantee you they will have slightly better cameras and slightly better processors. They are incremental improvements. What Apple really needs is a game changer.” 

You also write about the fact that disrupted industries almost always try to stop the coming disruption first through lawsuits. 

“The taxi business was ripe for disruption. Unless you were on a street corner in New York City, it took forever to get a cab. They would come and frequently it was an old beat-up cab, frequently a rude driver. Sometimes you were afraid you were being cheated. The taxi industry was disrupted not by who you would expect, not by Yellow Cab or Hertz or Avis who could have gone into that business. They were disrupted by a bunch of computer nerds in the Silicon Valley who developed a new algorithm and an app. And the app could know exactly when your car was coming, where it was, and you didn’t have to pay. It was wonderful. You even knew the rating of your driver before he or she arrived. So how did the taxi industry react rather than saying, ‘Well, they figured out our weakness, we better up our game. We better change.’ Nope. They went to local government where they were franchised, and where they had strong relationships, and they tried to have this new industry declared illegal.”