It reminds me of Clayton Christiansen's books on disruptive innovation, where he describes the mechanism by which companies are disrupted as them "being held hostage by their customers". Basically, what makes an innovation disruptive is that it is unappealing or threatening to your most valuable customers; thus, you always have a strong incentive to ignore it, even if you know strategically that it's important. Doing anything else would punish your revenues and stock price, basically assuring that you're removed as CEO.