---
description: Across five historical transitions proxy inertia -- where incumbents rationally protect profitable business rather than embrace disruption -- predicted failure more reliably than routine or cultural inertia
type: claim
domain: teleological-economics
created: 2026-02-17
confidence: likely
source: "Attractor state historical backtesting, Feb 2026"
tradition: "Teleological Investing, complexity economics"
---

# proxy inertia is the most reliable predictor of incumbent failure because current profitability rationally discourages pursuit of viable futures

Historical backtesting of the attractor state framework across five industry transitions identifies proxy inertia as the single most reliable predictor of which incumbents will fail during structural change. Proxy inertia occurs when an incumbent's current profitability makes it rational to protect existing business rather than invest in the emerging structure -- even when the emerging structure is clearly the attractor state. The incumbent sees the future but the switching costs (financial, organizational, reputational) make staying put the rational short-term choice.

In computing deconstruction, IBM's mainframe business was enormously profitable. Every dollar invested in PCs cannibalized higher-margin mainframe revenue. IBM rationally underinvested in PCs and overprotected the mainframe -- Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma describes this mechanism precisely. DEC had profitable minicomputers that PCs threatened. Both companies recognized the trajectory but their profit structures prevented them from acting on it.

In telecom, the Baby Bells held regulated local monopolies generating reliable returns. Investing in competitive markets meant cannibalizing protected revenue. They responded by lobbying to maintain regulatory advantages rather than competing aggressively. AT&T gave away its cellular licenses because internal forecasts (the McKinsey study predicting 900,000 subscribers by 2000 vs. 100 million actual) reflected cultural inertia -- but the deeper failure was proxy inertia from wireline profitability.

In automotive, Ford himself exhibited proxy inertia toward his own innovation. The Model T was so profitable that Ford resisted segmentation even as GM's strategy was clearly winning. "Any color so long as it's black" became a liability precisely because the current product's success discouraged pursuit of the next configuration.

In electrification, factories that worked profitably under shaft-and-belt had no economic incentive to tear down and rebuild for unit drive when the productivity gains were speculative and invisible for decades. This is textbook proxy inertia -- current profitability masking future obsolescence.

Only containerization showed less proxy inertia, because the break-bulk system was not highly profitable for incumbents -- it was simply the way things had always been done. This exception confirms the rule: where proxy inertia was weak, the transition succeeded faster despite enormous resistance from other inertia types (particularly longshoremen's cultural inertia).

The combination of attractor-state identification plus proxy-inertia detection is the most powerful signal in teleological investing. Since [[attractor states provide gravitational reference points for capital allocation during structural industry change]], the attractor provides the destination. Proxy inertia provides both the timing signal (incumbents are actively protecting their position rather than adapting) and the source of mispricing (the market prices incumbent profitability as durable when the framework reveals it as fragile). When you can see WHERE the industry is going AND you can see incumbents refusing to go there, the investment thesis is strongest.

Since [[the universal disruption cycle is how systems of greedy agents perform global optimization because local convergence creates fragility that triggers restructuring toward greater efficiency]], proxy inertia is the mechanism that converts Phase 1 convergence into Phase 2 fragility. The incumbent's success IS the fragility -- their optimal local position prevents them from seeing or reaching the global optimum. Detecting proxy inertia is detecting the system approaching criticality.

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Relevant Notes:
- [[attractor states provide gravitational reference points for capital allocation during structural industry change]] -- proxy inertia detection combined with attractor identification produces the strongest investment thesis
- [[the universal disruption cycle is how systems of greedy agents perform global optimization because local convergence creates fragility that triggers restructuring toward greater efficiency]] -- proxy inertia is the mechanism converting convergence into fragility
- [[companies and people are greedy algorithms that hill-climb toward local optima and require external perturbation to escape suboptimal equilibria]] -- proxy inertia is greedy hill-climbing at the corporate level: the local peak is too profitable to leave
- [[economic path dependence means early technological choices compound irreversibly through dominant designs and industrial structures]] -- proxy inertia compounds path dependence because it prevents incumbents from switching to the new path even when they can see it
- [[hill climbing gets trapped at local maxima because it can only accept improvements and has no way to see beyond the nearest peak]] -- proxy inertia is the economic mechanism that traps firms at local maxima: each quarter's profit validates staying put

- [[three types of organizational inertia -- routine cultural and proxy -- each resist adaptation through different mechanisms and require different remedies]] -- Rumelt's inertia taxonomy provides the theoretical framework; this note's backtesting identifies proxy inertia as the most predictive type across five historical transitions
- [[riding waves of change requires anticipating the attractor state and positioning before incumbents respond through their predictable inertia]] -- proxy inertia makes incumbent response predictable: they will protect current revenue until it is too late
- [[the arc of enterprise runs from tight design through resource accumulation to strategic drift as success enables the laxity that creates vulnerability]] -- proxy inertia is the mechanism that converts resource accumulation into strategic drift: current profitability rationally discourages the tight design renewal that would address the emerging attractor
- [[CMS 2027 chart review exclusion targets vertical integration profit arbitrage by removing upcoded diagnoses from MA risk scoring]] -- live example: UHC/Humana's vertical integration coding arbitrage IS the proxy being removed by CMS, and their rational response is to shed members rather than rebuild around genuine quality
- [[Devoted is the fastest-growing MA plan at 121 percent growth because purpose-built technology outperforms acquisition-based vertical integration during CMS tightening]] -- Devoted as the attractor-aligned entrant growing while proxy-inertia-trapped incumbents retreat

Topics:
- [[attractor dynamics]]
- [[livingip overview]]