innovation, creativity & contrarian thinking

After speaking with Dana White, Ed Catmull, and Rick Rubin in the same week, @davidsenra noticed a common theme: they create the…

The world is a museum of passion projects. Everything around us is someone's lifework. Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

useful constraints: - doing sth with less money - doing sth with less time - doing sth with less options

یاد این جمله افتادم: Nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically. از این جور آدما که یه ویژن رو با شیدایی تمام، دیوانه‌وارِ تعقیب کنن تا به واقعیت تبدیل بشه برا همه، بسیار نادر هستند. راحت ترین کار اینه که بگی حتما انجام شده یا یه شرکت بزرگ انجامش میده و بگذری.

progress depends on unreasonable people that want to change the world to fit them. not the other way around.

@pmarca credentials. committees. gatekeeping. groupthink. expert consensus. judged only by insiders. slow to recognize outsiders. resistance to revolutionary ideas. operating only within current paradigm. favoritism, and bias. @pmarca also: farther away from truth and reality compared to other fields/domains/industries.

@pmarca credentials. committees. gatekeeping. groupthink. expert consensus. judged only by insiders. slow to recognize…

Innovators have 2 distinct strengths: 1. Recognizing important new ideas 2. Commercializing them to the masses To comm…

to have great ideas, consume great ideas. the best thinkers are remixers.

deep dissatisfaction with status quo. curse and blessing.

“my dream was to be an Isambard Kingdom Brunel for my time. it would have been silly, of course, to hope of attaining that sort of status, but there was no reason for him not to be an inspiration.of status, but there was no reason for him not to be an inspiration. for it is in our engineers that we should place our greatest faith for the present, in that they determine the way our future will be. while novelists, painters and poets are making craven images to the present, ossifying it, offering to the future only ways of remembering, the engineers and inventors are determining how the future will work.” -james dyson, against the odds

the true test of an invention is the power of an inventor to push it through not opposition, but entrenched indifference. great inventors outlast indifference. Examples: • Jobs repeating the same vision until it clicked • Dyson building thousands of prototypes while no one cared • Bezos explaining “why online retail matters” for years before belief followed

only play games you have an edge in. differentiate through authenticity. no one can beat you at being you.

innovation is rarely about a big idea. more usually, it's a series of small ideas brought together in new and better ways. -jony ive (i think..)

“it can be enormous fun to think up new ways of doing things and then to prove they are no mere pipe dreams by turning them into real, live products sold around the world. but another big motivation for inventors has been frustration: frustration about things that have been around for years, doing an okay job, but not anything like as good a job as they could. the breakthrough was realising that things don't have to be the way they are.” -james dyson, history of great inventions

the imitating majority follows the innovating minority, and this follows the original individual.

“At Dyson, we don't particularly value experience. It tells you how things should be done when we are much more interested in how things shouldn't be done. If you want to pioneer and invent new technology, you need to step into the unknown, and in that realm, experience can be a hindrance.” -james dyson, invention: a life

my own success has been in observing objects in daily use which, it was always assumed, could not be improved. by lateral thinking - the 'edisonian approach' - it is possible to arrive, empirically, at an advance. -james dyson, against the odds

difference for the sake of it. in everything. because it must be better. from the moment the idea strikes, to the running of the business. difference, and retention of total control. -james dyson, against the odds

it is hard for most people to understand or get excited by a new idea. this requires self-reliance and faith on the part of the inventor. -james dyson, invention: a life

a life of perpetual learning, pursuing science, engineering, and technology has been a magical and fulfilling adventure. the quiet thrill of improving products through the application of technology and making them enjoyable and surprising to use. for an engineer, the creative impulse, the desire to improve things, and the need to solve problems are a state of mind that cannot be switched off. it is there all the time, whether you are at work or you are at home. it is the intellectual challenge of seeing frustrations and problems and developing a product or system that solves them. -james dyson, invention: a life

when dyson showed people his prototype, industry experts quickly offered their verdict: if a better vacuum were possible, hoover or electrolux would have invented it already. this dismissive logic that if something were possible, industry giants would have already done it, is the comfortable assumption incumbents have relied on throughout history, right until an outsider proves them catastrophically wrong. it’s the same reasoning that led to western union to dismiss the telephone, or ibm to scoff at personal computers, or kodak to overlook the digital camera. for dyson, their skepticism became fuel. the certainty he was on to something precisely because people said he wasn't. -knowledge project, against the odds

incumbents all over the world can't imagine a different future. and that's the crack that disruptors exploit. charlie munger calls it commitment and consistency bias. once you're all in on a path, changing feels impossible, even when the evidence screams otherwise. this psychological trap transforms market leaders into sitting ducks. -knowledge project

we don't all want to sing the same song and look at the same painting. we want difference and originality. different products working in different ways and achieving different objectives.

@shaneparrish @bluewmist i think he/she read somewhere that “great artists steal” without understanding the context 😅

nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically.

nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically. because stubborn obsession is the activation energy of innovation. the reaction won’t start unless someone insists hard enough to break old bonds and a form new reality. if your idea is any good you have to shove it down people’s throats. because if you don’t impose your idea on the world, the world will impose its inertia on you. reality yields only to pressure. future bends only for the determined.

nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically. because stubborn obsession is the activation energy of innovation. the reaction won’t start unless someone insists hard enough to break old bonds and form a new reality. if your idea is any good you have to shove it down people’s throats. because if you don’t impose your idea on the world, the world will impose its inertia on you. reality yields only to pressure. future bends only for the determined.

also: scarcity breeds creativity.

Napoleon: “the greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the non-existent.” he definitely had the founder mentality!

master class in the history of technology adoption and innovation by michael. “people thought john d. rockefeller was crazy for 30 years until he was the richest man on the planet.”

it takes a fanatic and stubborn visionary, a semi-delusional optimist to realize anything of great value/importance.

“daddy, why can’t i see the picture?!” edwin land’s 3 year old daughter asking him (in 1948) after he took a picture of her with a normal film camera on a family vacation. and then he goes into deep thought for hours and comes up with the idea of instant photography. Polaroid camera was invented.

- edwin land: don’t do anything someone else can do - steve jobs: don’t live someone else’s life - jeff bezos: differentiation is survival and universe wants you to be typical; don’t let it - james dyson: do things your way -paul graham: build what you want

Edwin Land was a pioneer whose inventions were dismissed, and yet he created a great company by dint of pure stubbornness. Marketing was based on asking people what they wanted or had bought already. He held that the business of business was something different, making things that people didn't know they wanted until they were available. He is an example of smart, effective work, work that gives the world, and this is a quote that he loved to say, the world is something well worth having.

@AlexHormozi true. constraints breed creativity, if you have a resourceful attitude.

it’s easy to mimic others. it’s hard to think for yourself.

noted: long-term advantage in business comes from being comfortable looking like a fool in the short-term

@mbrandolph noted: long-term advantage in business comes from being comfortable looking like a fool in the short-term

examples of outsourced thinking: - everyone believes x - everyone is doing that - there was this huge news - that expert says x is true/false - i just follow the advice i got from x

the fastest way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job. jb

henry ford didn’t invent the car but he made it cheap and popular and accessible to the american people. steve would translate good ideas into finished, brilliant products.

ask: what’s the angle that no one notices

when you can’t buy your way out, you have to think your way through. nothing squeezes the creative juice out of you like constraints if you’re going up against giants with endless resources, that’s your edge. they have abundance. you have constraints. and that makes you more creative than they’ll ever be. because abundance destroys motivation. motivation to: - come up with efficient solutions - plan and execute with precision - think twice before you make a move - question every assumption - make every dollar/hour/decision count scarcity breeds urgency. urgency fuels focus. focus unlocks clarity. and clarity wins. apple had it when ibm didn’t. dyson had it when giants laughed. netflix had it when blockbuster blinked. abundance makes you lazy. scarcity makes you dangerous.

when you can’t buy your way out, you have to think your way through. nothing squeezes the creative juice out of you like constraints. if you’re going up against giants with endless resources, that’s your edge. they have abundance. you have constraints. and that makes you more creative than they’ll ever be. because abundance destroys motivation. motivation to: - come up with efficient solutions - plan and execute with precision - think twice before you make a move - question every assumption - make every dollar/hour/decision count scarcity breeds urgency. urgency fuels focus. focus unlocks clarity. and clarity wins. apple had it when ibm didn’t. dyson had it when giants laughed. netflix had it when blockbuster blinked. abundance makes you lazy. scarcity makes you dangerous.

edison rushed back to his research workshop to throw himself into creating a better and more practical electric light. he worked feverishly. thrilled at the possibilities of this new field. “it was all before me. i saw the thing had not gone so far but that i had a chance. i saw what had been done and never been made practically useful. the intense light had not been subdivided so that it can be brought to private housing.”

edison built the first version of the light bulb in a week. but the search for the right filament took 14 months. 6,000 materials tested. beard hair, linen, wood, cotton. until carbonized bamboo finally worked and glowed long enough. hack an initial version 1.0 fast. but improve 1% daily till you can’t live without it.

in 1800s, cleaning crews of new york city would work at nights to clean up 2-3 million pounds of horse manure left behind each day by the city’s 150 thousand horses. this was a “good enough” solution. think about this! but the good enough mentality is absent for inventors, innovators or entrepreneurs who envision a better world and pursue their vision fanatically till it’s realized.

when making a movie, do you have an audience in mind? quentin tarantino: mee!! i’m the audience! i just make what i want to see in the world.

nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically.

the therapist is trying to get her to think small: just be a normal person. don’t have these grandiose visions for your future. on the other hand jeff bezos in a shareholder letter: differentiation is survival and universe wants you to be typical. don’t let it.

nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically. -tg

nothing squeezes the creative juice out of you like constraints if you’re going up against giants with endless resource…

-the light bulb -the refrigerator -the washing machines arguably the biggest applications of the electricity. - access…

only the arrogants are self-confident enough to push their ideas onto other people. when you create a new product, it w…

you don’t need to worry about someone stealing your idea, if it’s any good you have to shove it down people’s throats.…

as I progressed, I realized that art and science, inventing and making, thinking and doing could be one and the same. I dared to dream that I could be engineer, designer, and manufacturer at the same time. -jd

having new ideas is a strange game, because it usually consists of seeing things that were right under your nose. once you seen a new idea it tends to seems obvious. when an idea seems simultaneously novel and obvious, it’s probably a good one. a new idea usually requires you to change the way you look at the world. it’s admitting to yourself that you have a broken model of the world. broken models of the world leave a trail of clues when they bash against reality. most people do not want to see these clues. it’s an understatement to say they are attached to their current model. -pg

everything significant, starts insignificantly. it starts small. how it grows to be significant? by making successive versions. great things are almost always made in successive versions. you start with something small and evolve it. begin by trying the simplest thing that could possibly work. do not try to cram too much new stuff into any one version. evolve instead. -pg

history is so full of chance discoveries because of copying ideas from one field into another that is probably worth giving chance a hand by deliberately learning about other kinds of work. you can take ideas from quite distant fields if you let them be metaphors.

this recipe increases the odds of success big time. operate in a way so you can have many shots at something without being wiped out. probability can be hacked into your favor, if you know how probability works

look for virgin territory to identify opportunities.

your communication power increases as your conviction, self-confidence and certainty goes up. if you have complete confidence that this thing that you’re doing is right, and you’re going to win and it’s inevitable and you share that with people, they will feel that emanating from you and its very hard to resist.

those on the margins often come to control the center

the right path for game changing founders, isn’t a path yet. it doesn’t exist. it’s uncharted.

nothing squeezes the creative juice out of you like constraints if you’re going up against giants with endless resources, that’s your edge. they have abundance. you have constraints. and that makes you more creative than they’ll ever be.

the world we know is a human creation and we can push it forward

akia morita: our plan is to lead the public with new products rather than ask them what kind of products they want. the public does not know what is possible. but we do.

akia morita: our plan is to lead the public with new products rather than ask them what kind of products they want. the public does not know what is possible. but we do. so instead of doing market research, we refine our thinking on a product and its use and try to create a market for it by educating and communicating with the public.

only the arrogants are self-confident enough to push their ideas onto other people. when you create a new product, it will face indifference, no one is going to give a sh*t. you have to be the one pushing your new product past indifference. you have to make people care about it.

the road of a pioneer, the seeker of the unknown, is paved with difficulties.

the greatest leaders change how millions live. true leadership reshapes the way we think, work, and create. edison. jobs. bezos. they didn’t just build companies, they changed the way the world runs. i admire such leaders and try to learn from them and follow their example

i rather have a high probability of failure & a large consequence of success than reduce risk to the point where my probability of success is high & the consequence of success is inconsequential. without being willing to fail, you’re not going to succeed in a big way. -vk

reality bends to whoever tells a better story

reality is subjective you can bend it to your will if you’re able to communicate to people who matter in the ways that strike them in the heart and in the mind to get them to see the world the way that you do

examining the products that already exist and asking: is there a different way to do it? could you apply a different way for the product to look by getting closer to the function of the actual object?

my success came from observing objects in daily use which was always assumed could not be improved

@MartinGTobias be different. but be right.

be different. be right. that’s the challenge of an innovator.

when an idea comes don’t sit down and process it through pages of calculation don’t argue it with anyone just try to build it the root principle is to do things your way it doesn’t matter how others did it it doesn’t matter if it can be done better as long as it works and it’s exciting people will follow you -jd

opportunity hides in plain sight

the entrenched professional will always going to resist a new idea far longer than the private consumer

seek difference for the sake of difference seek originality for the sake of originality seek improvement for the sake of improvement

the edisonian way of product development is the iterative way it is the progress by stages it is that persistent trial and error that allows you to wake up one morning after many many mornings with a world beating product

ideas generate new ideas opportunities generate more opportunities inventions generate further inventions inventions very rarely come out of nothing there is an autogeneration of inventions out of each other an asexual reproduction of the product gene

so many big movies are just not good. it’s because they’re are not being made by a person who cares about it. they’re being made by people who are trying to make something they think someone else will like. and that’s not how art works. the audience comes last… i’m not making it for them. i’m making it for me. and it turns out that when you make something truly for yourself, you’re doing the best thing you possibly can for the audience. -rick rubin

@ycombinator to live in the future, first you need to be at the cutting edge of a trend or technology either as the person developing that technology or as a user of that cutting edge technology/trend

@ycombinator to live in the future, first you need to be at the cutting edge of a trend or technology either as the per…

it's hard to stop an idea whose time has come

even well meaning gatekeepers slow innovation when there is no gatekeeper, even the improbable ideas can get tried because there is no expert gatekeeper ready to say: “that will never work” and guess what many of those improbable ideas do work and society is the beneficiary of that diversity -jb

history is made by the few, lived by the many it unfolds through the dynamic interplay of innovators and imitators change happens because a few originative individuals start the chain reaction that the rest of society eventually absorbs

@FoundersPodcast it reminds me of: innovators → early adopters → majority → laggards majority are submissive, imitative a smaller group is innovative, experimenting and willing to deviate from the norm and at the root, there are the rare originative individuals

this insight is repeated by several innovators in different ways: steve jobs: people don't know what they want until you give it to them henry ford: if i had asked people what they wanted, they would've said faster horses jeff bezos: no one was asking for AWS, no customer ever asked for Echo, we just had a hunch and believed they should exist reed hastings: consumers don’t know what they want. we couldn’t have gone into focus groups and had them say, ‘build me netflix’ peter thiel: customers won’t tell you how to build a great business, they only validate what already exists sam altman: big breakthroughs happen when something new is possible, not when there’s demand for it --- these may not be the exact words, I paraphrased what I remembered

this insight is repeated by several innovators in different ways: steve jobs: people don't know what they want until you give it to them jeff bezos: no one was asking for AWS, no customer ever asked for Echo, we just had a hunch and believed they should exist reed hastings: consumers don’t know what they want. we couldn’t have gone into focus groups and had them say, ‘build me netflix’ peter thiel: customers won’t tell you how to build a great business, they only validate what already exists sam altman: big breakthroughs happen when something new is possible, not when there’s demand for it --- these may not be the exact words, I paraphrased what I remembered

if you read about a bunch of different fields, you can cross-fertilize ideas from one field into another -elon musk, on how to be innovative

@SMB_Attorney this insight is repeated by several innovators in different ways: steve jobs: people don't know what they…

@signulll i see it more as an opportunity and less of a tragedy i see it more as a shortage of real innovators

I still see a lot of people talking about “disrupting” industries. But they forget most disruption starts with someone no…

wondering in business is not random it’s guided by hunch, gut, intuition, curiosity, empowered by deep conviction the outsized discoveries, the non-linear ones are highly likely to require wondering no one asked for AWS, no one but the world was ready and hungry for an offering like AWS but didn’t know it we had a hunch followed our curiosity took the necessary financial risks and began building, reworking, experimenting, iterating countlessly same for Echo no customer was asking for echo this was definitely us wondering if you would have asked a customer in 2013: would you like a black always on cylinder in your kitchen that you can talk to and ask questions which can turn on your lights and play music? I guarantee you that they would have looked at us strangely and said: no thank you!

differentiation is survival and universe wants you to be typical do not let it!

I admire people who do things that are interesting to them who don’t have a strategy or master plan just following their curiosity trying to hack something together building things for themselves doing things to impress themselves

that hotel wasn't inevitable. no success is. paying the price doesn't guarantee success. determination is necessary but not sufficient. you can sacrifice everything and still fail. the world is littered with abandoned attempts. everything around you, every convenience you enjoy, every space you inhabit, every service you use, was one person's refusal to accept the world as it was. the world progresses from a collection of irrational dedication. -sp

it comes down to exposing yourself to the best things that humans have done then trying to bring those things into what you are doing sj

.@bhorowitz on thinking for yourself:

the only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. everything else is a recommendation. em

it comes down to exposing yourself to the best things that humans have done then try to bring those things into what you are doing sj

@jefielding just like the vast majority of population, the vast majority of investors can't "think for themselves"

some of us have some good music inside to those people I say: get your music out

The Achilles heel of successful companies is their inability to cannibalize themselves.🧵 Many innovations consist of replacing something with a cheaper alternative, and companies just don't want to see a path whose immediate effect is to cut an existing source of revenue. The professor who made his reputation by discovering some new idea is not likely to be the one to discover its replacement. This is particularly true with companies, who have not only skill and pride anchoring them to the status quo, but money as well. So if you're an outsider you should actively seek out contrarian projects. Instead of working on things the eminent have made prestigious, work on things that could steal that prestige.

The Achilles heel of successful companies is their inability to cannibalize themselves.🧵

just try hacking something together 🧵 It implies the result won't be pretty, because it will be made quickly out of inadequate materials. It may work, but it won't be the sort of thing the eminent would want to put their name on. Hacking something together means deciding what to do as you're doing it, not a subordinate executing the vision of his boss. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, or maybe doesn't solve the problem at all, but another you discovered en route. But that's ok, because the main value of that initial version is not the thing itself, but what it leads to. Insiders who daren't walk through the mud in their nice clothes will never make it to the solid ground on the other side. —pg If I could go back and redo my twenties, that would be one thing I'd do more of: just try hacking things together

An innovator is someone who creates, adapts, or applies ideas in a way that meaningfully improves reality; whether through technology, business, art, or society. An innovator usually demonstrates: 🧵 1. Novelty: They introduce something new, whether it’s a product, method, or approach. It doesn’t have to be original from scratch; combining existing ideas in a new way counts too. Example: Steve Jobs didn’t invent the smartphone; he innovated by fusing phone + internet + apps into a seamless experience. 2. Impact: Their idea creates tangible value, economic, social, cultural, or scientific. Without adoption and impact, it’s just creativity, not innovation. Example: Marie Curie’s breakthroughs in radioactivity fundamentally changed medicine and science. 3. Execution: Innovators bridge the gap between imagination and reality. An innovator is not just a dreamer; they find ways to make their ideas practical and scalable. Example: Elon Musk taking electric cars from niche prototypes to mainstream adoption. 4. Risk-taking & Resilience: Innovators step into uncertainty, face resistance, and persist despite setbacks. They often challenge norms and entrenched systems. Example: The Wright brothers persevered through skepticism to prove heavier-than-air flight possible. 5. Influence on Others: True innovation often inspires follow-ups, copycats, and whole industries. An innovator doesn’t just build a thing; they shift the trajectory of what’s possible. Example: Ada Lovelace’s work on algorithms laid the foundation for modern computing, long after her time. In short: An innovator is someone who transforms ideas into reality in ways that change how people live, work, or think.

If you find a work of art that would appeal equally to your friends, to people in Nepal, and to the ancient Greeks, you're probably onto something. There is such a thing as good art. It's art that interests its human audience, and since humans have a lot in common, what interests them is not random. Since there's such a thing as good art, there's also such a thing as good taste, which is the ability to recognize it. pg

taste is not subjective just like there is such a thing as good art, also there is such a thing as good taste

find errors in conventional wisdom you won’t be successful doing the same thing as everyone else is doing

as technology makes building things orders of magnitude cheaper, creativity, insight and sheer intelligence become much more leveraged in the innovation equation

It seems to me that beliefs about the future are so rarely correct that they usually aren't worth the extra rigidity they impose, and that the best strategy is simply to be aggressively open-minded 🧵 Instead of trying to point yourself in the right direction, admit you have no idea what the right direction is, and try instead to be super sensitive to the winds of change. It's ok to have working hypotheses, even though they may constrain you a bit, because they also motivate you. It's exciting to chase things and exciting to try to guess answers. But you have to be disciplined about not letting your hypotheses harden into anything more. The way to come up with new ideas is not to try explicitly to, but to try to solve problems and simply not discount weird hunches you have in the process. I believe this passive m.o. works not just for evaluating new ideas but also for having them. Love this thread of thoughts from pg

The unfortunate fact is that change is hard to predict. Change that matters usually comes from an unforeseen quarter. So I don't even try to predict it. —pg https://t.co/9KX1cEzPnM The winds of change originate in the unconscious minds of domain experts. If you're sufficiently expert in a field, any weird idea or apparently irrelevant question that occurs to you is ipso facto worth exploring. Within Y Combinator, when an idea is described as crazy, it's a compliment—in fact, on average probably a higher compliment than when an idea is described as good.

Innovators have 2 distinct strengths: 1. Recognizing important new ideas 2. Commercializing them to the masses To commercialize ideas they need to: 1. Make them useful, reliable & affordable 2. Distribute them creatively & effectively Important new ideas are ideas that can change how we do things in a significantly better way. The improvement could be about speed, price, or the core experience of doing that thing. The historical examples of winning innovators all created new economic relationships, not just better technology. Bezos didn't invent e-commerce; he made it trustworthy, convenient, cheaper, faster. Uber didn't invent ride-sharing; they made it instant and reliable. Google didn't invent search engines; they made search results relevant and monetizable through AdWords - creating a new relationship between user intent and advertisers. Netflix didn't invent video rental; they eliminated late fees and then made content infinitely accessible - changing the relationship from transactional to subscription. Airbnb didn't invent vacation rentals; they made strangers trust each other through reviews and guarantees - creating economic value from unused bedrooms. Stripe didn't invent payment processing; they made it possible to accept payments with 7 lines of code - turning developers into commerce enablers. Instagram didn't invent photo sharing; they made everyone a photographer with filters - creating a new relationship between personal moments and public performance. Winners identify a valuable transaction that should happen but doesn't because of friction, then remove that friction. For AI, the question becomes: What valuable exchanges aren't happening because: - It's too expensive to have expert judgment? - It takes too long to process information? - The right expertise isn't available locally? - People can't articulate what they need? - Trust hasn't been established? What new economic relationships could AI enable that aren't possible today? - Pick a specific niche where you have unfair advantages (knowledge, connections, passion) - Build something people can use TODAY, not a grand vision for 2030 - Get to real customers fast - the market will evolve too quickly for long development cycles 1-What would you do with a 1000 PhDs in your pocket? 2-What would your ideal future look like? Build that future. 3-How current experiences can be 10X faster, cheaper and better? - like General Electric found the applications to unlimited electricity and won the electricity era with appliances like washing machines and dish washers ... saved hours daily for women which lead to women’s emancipation - like Rockefeller found applications to unlimited hydrocarbons and now almost all the physical products are made of hydrocarbons and Standard oil became the standard energy - like Steve Jobs found applications for unlimited silicon chips/compute through personal computers to be used by the masses and now almost everything and everyone is working with personal computers and machines - like Jeff Bezos found applications to unlimited and almost free store front and distribution access with Internet and now almost everything is sold on Amazon - like XXX will find applications to unlimited and cheap intelligence (AI) that everything and everyone …

“If I had to put the recipe for genius into one sentence, that might be it: to have a disinterested obsession with something that matters.” —pg Translation: Genius comes from being obsessed with something purely for its own sake, without being motivated by money, fame, recognition, or other personal benefits. It’s about having a pure, objective fascination with the subject matter itself. An obsessive interest in a topic is both a proxy for ability and a substitute for determination.

either keep learning to the point that you can come up with important new ideas or develop your judgement and improve your thinking so you can recognize an important new idea when you see one ideally do both

What was special about Einstein wasn’t the fact the he was smart. What was special about him was that he had important new ideas.

I don't think @soh3il has ever had a more impressive innovator on the show than @bolurfrushan ! I especially loved the mental model he shared for thinking about the AI wave: GE won the electricity era by inventing "appliances" that freed up hours of labor—especially for women—contributing significantly to their emancipation. Rockefeller won hydrocarbons by building Standard Oil, turning oil into the building blocks of modern life. Bezos won the internet by turning it into an unlimited storefront, catalog, and distribution channel. Steve Jobs won silicon/compute by creating the ultimate interface: the personal computer and smartphone. And now the big question: Who will win the AI era by creating applications for "unlimited intelligence"? Fascinating episode!

In 21st century, to change the world you don't need to open a factory, you just need to open your laptop.

I love being underestimated.

@BusinessNerd_ On Jan 29, 1886, Carl Benz applied for a patent for his “vehicle powered by a gas engine.” His patent – num. 37435 – may be regarded as the birth certificate of the automobile. In July 1886, first public outing of the three-wheeled Benz Patent Motor Car, model no. 1 was reported.

@BusinessNerd_ On Jan 29, 1886, Carl Benz applied for a patent for his “vehicle powered by a gas engine.” His patent – n…

Go for a walk. Cultivate hunches. Write everything down, but keep your folders messy. Embrace serendipity. Take on multiple hobbies. Frequent liquid networks. Follow the links. Let others build on your ideas. Borrow, recycle, reinvent. Build a tangled bank. Before landing on a breakthrough idea, we often need to be on the cutting edge first. Because "adjacent possible" is the dominant pattern of innovation. Technological (and scientific) advances rarely break out of the adjacent possible; The history of cultural progress is, almost without exception, a story of one door leading to another door, exploring the palace one room at a time. But human minds are not bound by the finite laws of molecule formation; So every now and then an idea does occur to someone that teleports us forward a few rooms, skipping some exploratory steps in the adjacent possible. But those ideas almost always end up being short-term failures, precisely because they have skipped ahead. We have a phrase for those ideas: we call them "ahead of their time." And when it comes to innovation "early" means "wrong". YouTube: Had Hurley, Chen, and Karim tried to execute the exact same idea for YouTube ten years earlier, in 1995, it would have been a spectacular flop, because a site for sharing video was not within the adjacent possible of the early Web. The trick is to figure out ways to explore the edges of possibility that surround you. Today I revisited this great book by @stevenbjohnson , reread all my highlights, and took some more notes. Innovation is at the top of my favorite subjects. This book is an accessible source for innovation patterns and inspiration. Happy reading! 📙 @stevenbjohnson Find my notes in the booksense app: