Build, Don’t Break
Rethinking Disruption Through the Eyes of Two Master Builders
I'll admit it: I used to be a believer.
In my early days as an entrepreneur myself, trying to build things, the Silicon Valley mantra of "Move fast and break things" caught me as well.
But with the passing years, seeing the concept being implemented around the world—when company after company is being burned to the ground—I realized something had gone terribly wrong. We weren't just failing fast—we were failing people. And we were calling it innovation.
The "Move fast and break things" echoes through boardrooms, startup accelerators, and innovation conferences worldwide. From social media platforms that "disrupted" human connection only to fragment society, to gig economy companies that "innovated" traditional employment into precarious labor, the carnage of mindless disruption surrounds us.
But what if this philosophy, celebrated as the engine of technological progress, is actually undermining the very innovation it claims to foster?
Disruption, in itself, isn’t inherently bad—some industries genuinely needed shaking up. But over time, a dangerous oversimplification has taken hold: that to innovate is to destroy. When destruction becomes the default goal rather than a consequence of meaningful creation, we stop asking the more important question: What are we actually trying to build?
Over fifteen years of studying companies that build with care—for people, not just markets—one truth has become impossible to ignore: this mindset shift isn’t new, but it’s never been more urgent.
What I Wish I Could Tell Every CEO
Here's what I want every leader to understand: Innovation has become synonymous with disruption, as if the primary goal of progress is to destroy what came before. But some of the world's most thoughtful creators see it differently.
Earlier this month, Jony Ive—the design mind behind Apple's most transformative products—offered a sharp critique of this destructive mindset during a conversation with Patrick Collins, co-founder of Stripe.
"I think people confuse innovation with being different or breaking stuff. I have no interest in breaking stuff for the sake of breaking stuff. I don't think breaking stuff and moving on quickly leaves us well — it leaves us surrounded by carnage," said Ive.
Ive's words cut to the heart of a fundamental misconception that I see in organizations every week. He continued: "I'm interested if things get broken as a consequence of actually creating something better." The destruction, if it happens at all, should be incidental to creation, not the objective itself.
This distinction matters more than semantic precision. When destruction becomes the goal, we optimize for the wrong outcomes. We celebrate the speed of breaking rather than the quality of building. We measure success by what we've torn down rather than what we've created.
And the human cost? It's real. I've seen talented teams burn out chasing timelines that confuse speed with success. I've watched great people sacrificed on the altar of disruption—when what was needed was direction. I’ve sat in meetings where leaders talked about ‘breaking’ departments as if they weren’t talking about human lives. I’m not against bold moves. But bold shouldn’t mean blind.
Building Forward, Not Looking Back
Reflecting on Ive's critique of destructive innovation, I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite entrepreneurs who embodies this constructive approach—an engineer and a glass artist who financed his early companies by selling his art: Square co-founder Jim McKelvey. In his book The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, McKelvey offers a fresh perspective that challenges the disruption-obsessed mindset. In his analysis of successful entrepreneurship, McKelvey argues that
"disruption has also never been the focus of good entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs profiled in this book set out to build and not to destroy."
This perspective comes from an entrepreneur with deep experience—McKelvey has started more than 10 companies since the 1980s, with at least five still operating today (if not more, as he mentioned in “Audacity in Entrepreneurship and Art,” a podcast we recorded together).
McKelvey's insight reveals the backward-facing nature of disruptive thinking. "To focus on disruption is to look over one's shoulder into the past," he writes. True entrepreneurs, according to McKelvey, are forward-looking builders who "distribute that future. The companies they build are not disrupters, they are market expanders for those people waiting for their slice of the future."
Square, which revolutionized online mobile payment starting in 2008, perfectly exemplifies this approach. Before Square, farmers at farmers markets, small artisans, and tiny shops that didn't meet credit card companies' minimum requirements could never accept card payments. Square changed that. Now, when you go to the beach or the market and want to pay a small merchant by card—that's McKelvey's vision realized.
This reframing is profound. Instead of asking "What can we destroy?" successful entrepreneurs ask "Who isn't being served?" Instead of competing to defeat existing players, they create new value for people who previously had no access. Innovation becomes about expansion rather than contraction, about inclusion rather than displacement.
Of course, this doesn’t mean ignoring competitive threats or refusing to evolve. Steve Jobs believed that “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.” But here’s the distinction: self-disruption at Apple wasn’t about reckless demolition. It was about choosing to evolve intentionally—guided by a vision of what could be better, not just a fear of being left behind. The motivation wasn’t destruction—it was reinvention in service of something more meaningful.
McKelvey's entrepreneurs don't succeed by dismantling the past—they succeed by building bridges to a better future. This is fundamentally different work that requires fundamentally different thinking: not one of conquest, but of contribution.
The Long-Term Imperative
What connects Ive's purposeful creation and McKelvey's market expansion is their shared commitment to long-term thinking. Each rejects the short-term satisfaction of destruction in favor of the harder work of sustainable construction.
Long-term thinking changes everything. When we optimize for sustainability rather than speed, we make different choices. We invest in foundations rather than facades. We build systems that can evolve rather than structures that must be replaced. We create value that compounds rather than consuming resources that disappear.
This shift is essential not just for individual companies, but for our organizations and society as a whole. The "move fast and break things" mentality has given us technological marvels alongside social fragmentation, economic growth alongside environmental degradation, and unprecedented connectivity alongside widespread isolation.
In 2014, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was retiring the phrase. The new internal slogan would be “Move fast with stable infrastructure.” It sounded more responsible, more grown-up. But by then, the original spirit had already seeped deep into the culture—not just at Facebook, but across much of Silicon Valley.
Sustainable innovation requires a different approach—one that builds thoughtfully for lasting impact rather than moving quickly toward uncertain outcomes. It demands that we measure success not just by what we can create in the next quarter, but by what we can sustain over the next generation.
What Monday Morning Looks Like
So what does this mean for you as a leader? Here's what I've learned works:
Stop asking "What can we break?" Start asking "Who isn't being served?"
When I speak to leadership teams now, I ask them to rethink how they use the word disruption. Instead of treating it as a goal in itself, we reframe the conversation around expansion. Who doesn't have access to what you offer? What unmet needs exist in your market? What would happen if you served people everyone else ignores?
Measure creation, not destruction.
Consider changing your metrics, or at least expanding them. Instead of celebrating how quickly you can shut down old processes, measure how effectively you're building new value. Track expansion metrics: new markets served, previously unserved customers reached, capabilities built rather than eliminated.
The choice is yours. You can optimize for the short-term rush of breaking things, or you can commit to the harder, more rewarding work of building something that lasts.
Which path will you choose?
If this resonates with you, I share more reflections like this on LinkedIn. Join me there for daily ideas on creative leadership and the artistry of business.
Stay creative,
NIR
P.S. Last week, we said goodbye to a true artist of the football game—Luka Modrić. If you missed my personal tribute, you can read it here:
If helping your team create with meaning is on your mind, this is exactly what I speak about. In my keynotes, I help leaders reframe mistakes, not as failures, but as fuel for thoughtful innovation. Curious what that could look like in your organization? Let’s talk.
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