Synopsis

Disruption Games introduces corporate executives to groundbreaking strategies and frameworks to switch on growth through examining failure. The book also helps entrepreneurs understand corporate thinking, structure and priorities so both can partner and thrive.
Common wisdom says that success breeds success, indeed this is how most VCs pick startups, businesses select talent, and singles search for dates. In contrast, the evidence shows that only repeated failure breeds success.

Fail fast is an often-used proverb, but failing miserably and slow can often build resilience to stay the course and discover opportunity.
Futurist, immigrant, wine columnist, organic gardener, cross country skier, and beginner bass player Trond Undheim, through his own failures and successes has attempted to co-innovate with literally thousands of startups, founders, and innovators. With over 20-years of first-hand experiences at MIT, WPP, Oracle, and the European Commission, with 200+ top global brands as clients and co-conspirators, he outlines simple techniques that corporate innovators can use, to build an executive/manager’s confidence in his or her ability to reap the fruits of technology innovation, shaping your understanding of the interplay of technology, academia, startups, and industry.

The book will:
-Tell the story behind famous (Buzzfeed, Dropbox, etc.) or soon-to-be famous MIT startups.
-Tell the story about famous MIT faculty who are serial founders of startups (Prof. Bob Langer has founded 40+ startups, etc.)
-Provide case stories from big corporations (GE, Philips, P&G, Samsung) trying to innovate and partner with startups.

Sales arguments

• By 2030, the global labor force, an estimated 3.5 billion people, will be led by knowledge workers with disruptive skills, experienced with both epic failures and with simultaneous mastery of a multiplicity of domains, markets, and challenges.
• The author has track record from MIT—building one of the world’s largest and highest quality matchmaking program for corporates and startups— connecting 250 of the world’s largest corporations, to 170 of MIT’s serial entrepreneurial faculty and alumni, and 1,500 of MIT’s startups—resulting in $100M+ in startup capital raised and 10x increase in shareholder value.
• The four top brands in the world are tech companies created in the last few decades (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook). At the same time, there is no telling how long this newest disruptive wave will last, likely not forever. Across the world’s thriving innovation economies, there is a strong focus on startups as the engines of growth. Yet, succeeding with startup partnerships is very difficult. Also, despite their allure, most startups die or get acquired before they become corporate behemoths.
• The author has a proven paid speaking platform in the corporate world and among startups, has given an average of 50 presentations a year over the past five years to audiences ranging from 50 to 500.
• The author is deeply committed to a very hard AI problem that will change the world and save lives and has co-founded a curated web search productivity platform (yegii.com) with numerous synergies, lessons, and an attractive audience of intelligent, affluent users who will buy books in bulk.

Similar titles

• The Innovator’s Dilemma (Harvard Business Review Press, 1997), by Clayton Christensen (288 pages, $22 Hardcover, $14 Paperback, $13 Kindle).
• The Disruption Dilemma (MIT Press, 2016), by Joshua Gans (176 pages, $15 Hardcover, $15 Paperback, $10 Kindle).
• The Industries of the Future (Simon & Schuster, 2017), by Alec Ross (320 pages, $10 Hardcover, $9 Paperback, $13 Kindle).

Audience

The book is primarily written for executives who try to catch the innovation wave by fostering internal innovating or connecting to external innovation andbut is also highly relevant to entrepreneurs who want to get large business as their clients, partners or investors.

Advance praise

"Excited to hear MIT legend, star speaker and moderator Trond Undheim's new book, Disruption Games is available for pre-order. I cannot think of a better guide to the disruptive world that founders and executives inhabit"
— James Mawson, CEO & Founder, Global Corporate Venturing

"Through MIT, Trond has worked with some of the best startups in the world. Read this book for insights on what it took for them to succeed. Part business, part personal development, Disruption Games provides a blueprint of practical ways to jumpstart successful innovation through examining failure."
— Brent Hoberman, co-founder, Founders Forum, Lastminute.com, Made.com

"Even though I was an experienced founder, I have to say the partnerships Trond facilitated when he ran the startup program at MIT ILP were instrumental to our launch and success."
— Natan Linder, Co-Founder of Formlabs (3D printing) and Tulip Interfaces (Advanced manufacturing app)

"Trond is extremely knowledgable about the use of technology to reach any customer base."
— David Molchany, Executive Partner, Gartner Executive Programs

"Trond is thorough, analytically strong and has the ability to push boundaries for himself and others."
— Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau, Special Envoy, Startup Delta

"Trond is absolutely trustworthy, full of good ideas and has got the energy and the optimism to walk on trying to get things done."
— Jochen Friedrich, Technical Relations Executive at IBM

Praise for 'Leadership From Below', also by Trond Undheim:

"A must-read for any young manager looking to apply the lessons of eBay, Google and Facebook to the real world."
— Julian Herbstein, Founder and CEO, Magic Fitness

"It is a book containing real strategies for real people, based on a philosophy of leadership and a way of thinking that at first seems so obvious, yet at the same time remains so elusive to most of us."
— Espen Moe, Ph.D, Author of Governance, Growth and Global Leadership, Ashgate, 2007. Professor of political science at the Department of Sociology and Political Science at NTNU

"Leadership from Below presents an important set of skills and concepts that anyone can use to maximize his or her potential influence and impact in an organization. "
— Barbara Larson, MBA, Executive Professor, Management and Organizational Development at the D'Amore-Mckim School of Business, Northeastern University