The Prosperity Paradox Quotes

“definition of infrastructure as the most efficient mechanism through which a society stores or distributes value.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“What could happen if we changed our emphasis from push to pull? What if much more of the $143 billion spent on official development assistance in 2016 was channeled to support direct market-creation efforts in poor countries, even when the circumstances seemed unlikely? Imagine how many markets could be created; imagine how many Tolarams, Nollywoods, M-PESAs, and other new-market creators could emerge; imagine how many jobs could be created. As I think about this problem, I can’t help but wonder how many fathers and mothers would be afforded the dignity of work and the resources to provide simple things for their families—like food, health care, and quality education. Imagine how many people would have a renewed sense of hope and purpose when they begin to see their suffering can become a thing of the past.”
― Clayton M Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“market-creating innovations democratize previously exclusive products and services.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“enduring prosperity for many countries will not come from fixing poverty. It will come from investing in innovations that create new markets within these countries.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“enduring prosperity for many countries will not come from fixing poverty.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“Ibrahim did not say How will millions of Africans, for whom three meals a day is often a luxury, afford a mobile phone? or How can you justify the investments in infrastructure for a market that does not exist? He focused on the struggle to accomplish something important for which there were few good solutions. For Ibrahim, struggle represented enormous potential.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“Alleviating poverty is not the same as creating prosperity. We need to start thinking differently.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“Ojomo, “Obsession with ending poverty is where development is going wrong,” Guardian, February 8, 2017,”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“Indomie noodles represent the process by which poverty, through innovation, can become prosperity.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“The third and perhaps most important output of a market is the cultural change the new market triggers and reinforces. In addition to democratizing products and services so that many more people in society have access, market-creating innovations also democratize the benefits of successful new markets that are created. These benefits aren’t limited to just jobs, but also ownership opportunities that are often offered to investors and employees. When many people in a region understand that they can begin to solve many of their problems (fend for themselves and their families and gain status and dignity in society) in a productive manner—that is, by participating in the new market as investors, producers, or consumers—they are more likely to change the way they think about their society. This is one of the ways new markets begin to change a society’s culture, which can make all the difference for a country looking to prosper.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

“But as MIT’s Edgar Schein—one of the world’s leading scholars on organizational culture—explains, those things don’t define a culture. They’re just artifacts of it. Schein has one of the most useful definitions of culture that we’ve seen: Culture is a way of working together toward common goals that have been followed so frequently and so successfully that people don’t even think about trying to do things another way. If a culture has formed, people will autonomously do what they need to do to be successful.”
― Clayton M. Christensen, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty