Christensen made this prediction, and it is the line he is most often quoted on. Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗ carries a fuller wording and cites a blog post of 28 June 2007 — and that page no longer resolves. We could not read it, and we could not reach an archived copy from this network, so no primary source was read for this page. Two things we can show: the documented text is longer than the version in circulation, with a sentence dropped between the two quoted here, and the square brackets in it are editorial insertions by whoever quoted him, not words we can show Christensen said.
“The prediction of my disruption theory would be that Apple won't succeed with the iPhone. History speaks pretty loudly on that” Clayton Christensen, 2007, as documented at Wikiquote; its cited source is now offline. Traced by Quotle.info · Verbatim: “[T]he prediction of [my disruption] theory would be that Apple won't succeed with the iPhone. They've launched an innovation that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat: It's not [truly] disruptive. History speaks pretty loudly on that, that the probability of success is going to be limited.”
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In context
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Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The prediction of my disruption theory would be that Apple won't succeed with the iPhone. History speaks pretty loudly on that". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
What the documented version says
Attributed to
A 2007 interview, as relayed by the blog post Wikiquote cites
Wikiquote’s citation
“Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma says iPhone will fail”, Jeremy’s Blog, 28 June 2007 — now offline
Wording
Condensed — one sentence is dropped between the two in circulation, and the tail is cut
Verdict
Attributed — the remark is his; the exact wording we could not read in a primary source
[T]he prediction of [my disruption] theory would be that Apple won’t succeed with the iPhone. They’ve launched an innovation that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat: It’s not [truly] disruptive. History speaks pretty loudly on that, that the probability of success is going to be limited.Clayton Christensen, 2007, as documented at Wikiquote
This is the text as Wikiquote ↗ prints it. Bold marks what the circulating two-sentence version leaves out — a whole sentence in the middle and the clause that closes the thought. The square brackets are editorial insertions made by whoever quoted him — including the capital in “[T]he” — so even the documented wording is not a clean transcript.
The fuller wording comes from Wikiquote’s Clayton M. Christensen page ↗, in its sourced 2000s section, where it is cited to a blog post titled “Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma says iPhone will fail”, dated 28 June 2007.
That citation is dead. The host does not resolve from here, and this container cannot reach the Internet Archive’s web capture either, so we could not read the page Wikiquote relies on. We are recording that rather than quietly citing a link we never opened.
The remark is widely described as coming from a Businessweek interview of June 2007. We could not verify that, so we do not assert it, and we give no issue date, interviewer or page for it anywhere on this page.
What is checkable is the shape of the drift: the two sentences people quote are not consecutive. A sentence about incumbents being “heavily motivated to beat” the iPhone sits between them, and it is the part that actually states the theory’s reasoning.
A 2007 interview remark is firmly within copyright in the United States, which reaches works published before 1931 only. The sentences are reproduced here as a short excerpt for identification, verification and criticism. We do not name a rightsholder: we could not read the original publication, so we could not establish which one it is.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Often mis-worded, and often shrunk
We found nobody disputing that Christensen said this. What happens to it is compression — each retelling a little shorter and a little more confident.
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The wordingThe two-sentence version Later variant
The documented text runs longer in both directions. Between “the iPhone” and “History speaks pretty loudly” sits the sentence that carries the actual argument — that Apple had launched something incumbents were heavily motivated to beat — and the closing clause, “that the probability of success is going to be limited”, is cut too. See Wikiquote’s entry ↗.
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Commonly compressed to“The iPhone will fail” Later paraphrase
That is the headline of the very blog post Wikiquote cites — “Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma says iPhone will fail” — and it is a summariser’s phrase, not Christensen’s. He predicted limited probability of success against motivated incumbents, which is a narrower claim than the slogan it became.
✓Best available: Wikiquote’s sourced 2000s section ↗, citing a blog post of 28 June 2007 that is now offline. We could not read a primary source, and we stop at “attributed” for that reason.
Context
Why it mattered
Christensen introduced “disruption” in The Innovator’s Dilemma ↗ (1997), the book that described how large incumbents lose by listening to their best customers while cheaper, worse products improve underneath them. Wikipedia ↗ notes the idea has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century.
Which is what makes the iPhone call interesting rather than merely wrong. His theory distinguishes sustaining innovations, which incumbents are motivated and able to beat, from disruptive ones, which they ignore. He read the iPhone as the first kind. The prediction follows correctly from the model; the model was pointed at the wrong thing.
The prediction was not a guess. It was the theory, applied — which is why the miss mattered.
Read the full story
Christensen (1952–2020) was the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and The Economist called him the most influential management thinker of his time — both per Wikipedia ↗.
A note on what this page does not do. The honest answer to “where exactly did he say it?” is that we could not open a primary source: Wikiquote’s citation has gone dead and the archive copy was unreachable from here. We would rather say that than print an interview date we never checked.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1952–2020 · American business academic · Harvard Business School
Clayton Magleby Christensen (1952–2020) was an American academic and business consultant who developed the theory of disruptive innovation, introduced in his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma and since called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century. He was the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and The Economist named him the most influential management thinker of his time.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available source (Chicago)
Christensen, Clayton M. Remark on the iPhone, 2007. Documented at Wikiquote, citing “Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma says iPhone will fail”, Jeremy’s Blog, 28 June 2007 — a page that is no longer online. No primary source was read.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The prediction of my disruption theory would be that Apple won't succeed with the iPhone. History speaks pretty loudly on that’?” Last verified 18 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-prediction-of-my-disruption-theory-would-be-that-apple/