Inflection Point

The phrase comes from calculus, where it marks the point at which a curve changes curvature. Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, borrowed it as a business metaphor in the early 1990s after Intel's memory chip business nearly collapsed when Japanese manufacturers undercut the market. Grove formalized the concept in his 1996 book Only the Paranoid Survive, coining "strategic inflection point" to describe those moments he'd lived through — using Intel's own near-death as the defining example.