The Trouble with Tech Companies (and Their Strategies)

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Cory Doctorow, author and digital rights advocate, argues that big tech companies from Facebook to Google and beyond have evolved - or devolved - in a disappointing way. He says that many large tech companies begin with a good product, but that over time they prioritize first business customers, and then ultimately shareholders and profits over end users. That creates a decline in service quality, and Doctorow explains why that's bad for customers, companies, and the broader economy and society. Doctorow wrote the new book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Deal's not just another payroll platform.
0:04.6	It's one your team might actually enjoy.
0:06.8	H.R, IT, and payroll, together, finally.
0:10.6	Built in-house, built for peace of mind.
0:13.1	Visit D-E-E-E-L.com slash HBR.
0:16.3	Thank you. I'm Adi Ignatius.
0:33.8	I'm Alison Beard, and this is the HBR Ideacast.
0:44.3	Thank you. I'm Alison Beard, and this is the HBR Ideacast. So, Alison, you know, there are times when someone puts their finger on something that we sense and that we experience, but we don't yet have a word for.
0:52.3	Such as?
0:53.3	Well, Clay Christensen did that with disruption, right?
0:56.1	The term is overused now to refer to almost any business challenge,
1:00.1	but his definition was very precise when newcomers start at the bottom of the market,
1:05.1	win customers there, and innovate up the value chain to displace the incumbent.
1:09.0	So now, Corey Docterow, a well-known tech writer,
1:12.5	has put his finger on another phenomenon that did not have a name. And that is the gradual evolution,
1:18.4	he would say deterioration of tech platforms. So Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and so on. We fall in
1:24.7	love with them, but they evolve into something we fall out of love with,
1:28.4	but we're kind of stuck in their world. And he calls that the inshittification of these services.
1:34.1	Okay, this is not a family-friendly term, but it was picked as the word of the year by a couple of big
1:39.3	dictionaries. Yeah, that is definitely not a word that I'm very comfortable saying, even though I can
1:44.4	generally swear with the best of them, but I do know exactly what you're talking about.
1:48.3	And I think it happens in lots of areas.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Harvard Business Review, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Harvard Business Review and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.