Topple rate is a name of a ratio of speed at which firms lose their leadership positions. It was believed that it was originally created by Jack Percival following losing his job. The Wall Street Journal article that appeared on September 9, 2007 attributes authorship to Patrick Viguerie, a McKinsey & Co. consultant.
For example, the minicomputer industry began, grew up, got big, profitable, smug, senile and died in 20 years from 1975 to 1995. Digital Equipment Corporation is a prime exemplar. In this case the topple rate of the minicomputer industry was 20 years.
A high topple rate is especially frequently used as a saying in fields of technological business.
The Red Queen's race has incredible evolutionary similarities. To maintain a leadership position, an industry must change at the same or faster rate than competing industries.
Famous quotes containing the words rate and/or topple:
“If I die prematurely at any rate I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“If kangaroos had no tails, they would topple over seems to me to mean something like this: in any possible state of affairs in which kangaroos have no tails, and which resembles our actual state of affairs as much as kangaroos having no tails permits it to, the kangaroos topple over.”
—David Lewis (b. 1941)