Skip to content
HHackerTube.videoSurprise me

Understanding the Job

Understanding the Job on HackerTube: recommended by 3 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2019–2024.

Edward Capaldi

lecture · intro · evergreen

Open on YouTube

Clayton Christensen explains the jobs-to-be-done idea in five minutes, using the fast-food milkshake example. The point is that understanding the job a product is hired to do makes it easier to improve.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Cited as the short, famous introduction to Jobs To Be Done and competition framing.

people recommended it
3
separate months
3
strong recommendations
1
discussed on HN
2019–2024
“well worth the 5 minute watch”
— nomilk, Sep 2024, in “Measuring Developers' Jobs-to-be-done”

What HN commenters said

3 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

sarrephDec 2020Strongly recommends

This is very much in the vein of Jobs to Be Done theory[0]. If you haven't heard of JTBD before, I would implore you to check-out Clayton Christensen's famous "milkshake" video here: ▶ this video It goes into enlightening detail about the same framing of competition as the author here does. [0] - [link]

in “The biggest competitor to your digital service? The Mars Bar” · View on HN

nomilkSep 2024Recommends

Also odd is the expression 'jobs to be done'. At first glance this seemed like an allusion to this famous ' Jobs to be Done ' Clay Christian talk [1] (well worth the 5 minute watch). But AFICT it's just coincidental use of the phrase. [1] ▶ this video

in “Measuring Developers' Jobs-to-be-done” · View on HN

andygcookNov 2019Recommends

This video from Clayton Christensen gives a good summary of Jobs To Be Done using milkshakes at a fast food restaurant as an example: ▶ this video Unrelated, but I saw Clayton Christensen speak at a conference years ago. He started out the talk by telling everyone that he had a stroke years earlier and after it, he couldn't speak clearly. For a professor, you can imagine that's not ideal. So he went out and bought Rosetta Stone and taught himself how to talk again. I was blown away and besides a few small stutters during the talk, I barely noticed. That story of grit always stuck with me as a truly remarkable example of how versatile humans can be.

in “Know Your Customers’ “Jobs to Be Done” (2016)” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Product, marketing & salesStartups & entrepreneurshipclayton christensenmilkshakeproduct strategyinnovation