Briefing #18: Are You a Nokia or a Nintendo?
Why complacency, not AI, is the real disruption
Note: This briefing was originally published on LinkedIn on November 21, 2025. It has been migrated to our new home on Substack to create a complete archive. Multi-format features like video and audio commentary are available for all new briefings published from April 2026 onwards.
In the face of massive technological change, every business leader is eventually forced to answer one very unexpected question: Is your organization a Nokia or a Nintendo?
Nokia is, arguably, the quintessential case study in complacency. Once so dominant that “Nokia” was synonymous with “mobile phone,” the company’s roots were actually in 19th-century paper and rubber goods. They were, for a time, masters of reinvention. But at the peak of their success, they fell into a trap: they dismissed the first iPhone not as a revolutionary ecosystem, but as a niche, expensive toy.
This isn’t just a historical case study for me. I saw this firsthand during my time there.
From the inside, one would have seen that there wasn’t a single moment of failure, but a continuous cultural shift that played out every day. Nokia had become trapped by its own success. Internal teams focused on optimizing what the organization believed was most important to consumers: hardware durability, call clarity, and battery life. The internal narrative, reinforced in meeting after meeting, was that the iPhone’s “flaws” — a fragile glass screen, poor battery, and no physical keyboard — made it a non-starter for “serious” users.
Nokia was executing a perfect plan for a world that was about to disappear. Data and past successes didn’t so much blind the organization rather than cause it to focus on the wrong things. At times, that’s what complacency feels like: a failure of imagination, borne from the comfort of success. The company was disrupted because it stood still.
Then there’s Nintendo. Their story is not one of flawless, linear victory. They also started in the 19th century, making playing cards. They dominated the 80s and 90s, but their history since has been a mix of blunders (like the Virtual Boy) and industry-defining successes (like the Nintendo Switch). Earlier this year, Nintendo launched the Switch 2, which claimed the record of being the fastest selling home video game console of all time.
The key difference is this: Nintendo never stopped trying to reinvent. They embody imperfect, relentless action.
This distinction is the entire lesson for leaders navigating the age of AI. The anxiety so many feel doesn’t come from the technology itself. It comes from the organizational paralysis in the face of it. It’s the fear of being a Nokia.
The prevailing winds today suggest AI may excel at taking exams but struggles with basic arithmetic. It’s tempting to see these limitations as a shield, a reason to wait and see, just as Nokia waited to see if the smartphone vision of the iPhone would bear out. But history shows this is a fallacy. Relying on today’s limitations to predict tomorrow’s capabilities is how incumbents get blindsided.
The antidote isn’t a perfect, multi-year strategic plan. It lands on the wisdom that “a good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan next week,” to paraphrase World War II General George Patton.
Execution, however imperfect, is the only antidote to disruption.
Pragmatic leaders who internalize this share three core habits. They exemplify the disciplined, daily work of fighting complacency.
They Actively Reject the Status Quo. “It’s the way we’ve always done things” is a warning sign. These leaders choose, instead, to embody the spirit of a George Bernard Shaw quote, most famously used by Robert F. Kennedy: “Some men see things as they are and ask, ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?’“
They Never Rest on Their Laurels. Intel’s legendary co-founder and CEO, Andy Grove, built his entire leadership philosophy on this idea, famously captured in the title of his book: “Only the Paranoid Survive.” This isn’t about anxious fear, but rather the relentless, productive vigilance against the inertia that success breeds.
They Master the “Art of the Possible.” Bill Gates’ vision of a “PC on every desk” seemed absurd at the time. It didn’t happen overnight. It was the result of pairing a huge ambition with “eminently doable” next steps, executed relentlessly. This is the very definition of pragmatic innovation.
The conversation today is about AI. Tomorrow, as the famed futurist Ray Kurzweil notes in what he calls the “Law of Accelerating Returns,” the next disruption will likely emerge even faster, and from a direction we don’t expect.
There is one memorable footnote worth sharing about Nokia. In a powerful testament to this very idea of reinvention, the Nokia of today has found new life, pivoting entirely from mobile phones to become a leader in network solutions. This itself is the point: reinvention, even after a catastrophic failure, is always possible.
The ultimate takeaway for pragmatic leaders is not to predict the future. It is not to wait for the “perfect” future. Instead, “it is,” as the visionary computer scientist Alan Kay once famously said, “to invent it.”