Many industries have their favorite buzzwords, but the word "disrupt" for the tech sector is in a league of its own. It’s become so overused that, basically, everything is disruptive today and, therefore, nothing is.
Even the person credited with popularizing the word, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, says the word has been abused in ways he didn’t intend. "Disruption is, at its core, a really powerful idea," Christensen told a TechCrunch Disrupt crowd in September. "But everyone hijacks the idea to do whatever they want now." Christensen said the word today is synonymous with short-term goals aimed at bringing companies an "immediate sense of success."
