In many cases, the innovative companies I studied as examples of decoupling seemed to be disrupting their industries thanks to the use of innovative technologies. After all, Uber, Amazon, and Birchbox are all regarded as technology companies, right? I decided to talk to these firms and learn about the new technologies they developed and were leveraging. It soon became clear to me that the initial success of these companies didn’t hinge on new and innovative technologies, but rather on the power of their business model innovations. Similarly, others have argued that even well-regarded “tech”
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