Like the bestselling "Innovator's Dilemma", "The Pebble and the Avalanche" takes a "big picture" look at what causes whole industries to change. Important revolutions of the past thirty years include the Internet, personal computers and the XML programming language. It turns out that all these revolutions have something in common: they are based on innovations that break technology apart. After breaking the technology apart, it still works but now you have smaller and more flexible pieces. Almost inevitably, people find ways to use these smaller and more flexible pieces to create new innovations. This process is called "disaggregation" because the pieces of technology that were formerly stuck together are pried apart but not destroyed. Yudkowsky shows how the Internet, the auto industry, music downloading and more, are all connected by the same dynamic - disaggregation - and shows why this dynamic is crucial to survival in the 21st century marketplace.