CONCEPT
The Tornado
Moore's phase of hypergrowth after the bowling alley — when accumulated pragmatist demand releases at once, market share replaces reference-building as the winning strategy, and the rules of adoption invert.
The tornado is the phase of Moore's lifecycle where pragmatist demand, having accumulated quietly behind the chasm and through the bowling alley, releases all at once. Demand exceeds supply. Market share is seized rather than earned. The winning strategy inverts from the bowling alley's depth to pure distribution velocity. Moore's 1995 Inside the Tornado mapped this phase and identified the three strategic positions — gorilla, chimp, monkey — that emerge once the dust settles. In the AI landscape of 2026, developer coding tools have entered their tornado. Enterprise knowledge work is approaching one. And the Software Death Cross of early 2026 is best understood not as a financial crisis but as the market's brutal repricing when one category enters the tornado while an adjacent category transitions to Main Street.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The tornado inverts the bowling alley's strategic logic. In the bowling alley, depth wins — serve one segment completely, build the whole product, accumulate