The hardest transition for software companies is not technological — it is change management. Incumbents fail because they get comfortable and fail to lean in early enough during platform shifts.

Desai argues that the biggest obstacle to navigating technology transitions like cloud or AI is not technology but change management. Teams get comfortable with existing success and fail to lean in early. He cites Nokia, BlackBerry, and the iPhone as examples of how incumbents can appear fine for quarters after a disruption hits, only to be destroyed later. ✦ AI generated

CJ Desai · No Priors · 2026-01-22 · original ↗

Yeah, you get comfortable. And I still remember we were early on ServiceNow on AI. And when I speak to our engineering team, they're like, oh, this is just something that's out there, not sure. And I said, no, not leaning in is not an option. Not leaning in, this is a platform, whether it matures 2 years from now or four years from now, we have to do that. So I think it is a more of a change management thing, because if you are doing something really, really well, I mean, I'm going to date myself, you think about Nokia handsets, they were doing really, really well. And even if you think about BlackBerry, do you know that when actually iPhone launched, I think I want to say three or five quarters after now, after the iPhone, BlackBerry was still selling a lot and was not being disrupted until it got really disrupted. So these transitions is more of a change management thing.

verbatim transcript · starts at 32:10