{
  "schema_version": "1.1",
  "id": "christensen-30000-new-products-80-percent-fail",
  "slug": "christensen-30000-new-products-80-percent-fail",
  "url": "https://groundedkit.com/claims/christensen-30000-new-products-80-percent-fail/",
  "api_url": "https://groundedkit.com/api/claims/christensen-30000-new-products-80-percent-fail.json",
  "claim": "Clayton Christensen said 30,000 new products launch each year and 80% (or 95%) fail",
  "commonly_cited_as": "\"95% of new products fail (Harvard's Clayton Christensen)\"",
  "verdict": "misquoted",
  "verdict_definition": "Primary source found, but the way it is quoted changes the subject, metric, population or precision.",
  "confidence": "medium",
  "rating": {
    "value": 2,
    "best": 5,
    "worst": 1
  },
  "origin": {
    "publisher": "HBS Working Knowledge",
    "title": "Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing (Feb. 14, 2011)",
    "year": "2011"
  },
  "quote": "Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, who notes that each year 30,000 new consumer products are launched—and many of them fail.",
  "method": "HBS article summarizing Christensen's jobs-to-be-done talk; it gives no failure percentage or study.",
  "drift": [
    "The source says 'many of them fail'; the 80% and 95% figures were added later",
    "No study measures the failure rate"
  ],
  "interest": "n/a (business school publication).",
  "safe_rephrasing": "Clayton Christensen noted that about 30,000 new consumer products launch each year and many fail; the popular 80% or 95% failure rates have no source in his remarks.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "HBS Working Knowledge — Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing",
      "url": "https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/clay-christensens-milkshake-marketing",
      "primary": true
    }
  ],
  "kind": "stat_check",
  "as_of": "2011 article",
  "last_checked": "2026-10-16",
  "stale": false,
  "date_reviewed": "2026-10-16",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}