5 minute summaries
1 quote, 3 ideas & 1 question from each episode
__________
23 Mar 2021
1hr 4mins
FEATURING
Owltail Summaries
1 quote, 3 ideas & 1 question from each episode
_________
#107 Matt Ridley: Infinite Innovation
23 Mar 2021
1hr 4mins
Quote
"There's no reason we can't innovate indefinitely, if not infinitely. If you think how far we've come in the last 200 years, imagine what the world will be like in the next 200."
Ideas
1
We tend to overvalue the idea and undervalue the execution.
Inventors are the ones who come up with ideas. Innovation is the process by which an idea is turned into something practical, reliable, available and affordable for ordinary people. And that's a long slog and it's a lot of hard work and it's often more important, more difficult than the process of coming up with a good idea in the first place.
A funny story Matt tells in the book, which illustrates the point, is a Beevor and a rabbit looking at the Hoover Dam, a hand made human dam, and the beaver says to the rabbit, I didn't build it, but it is based on an idea of mine.
[00:14:31]
And of course, getting from a simple beaver dam to the Hoover Dam requires a lot of innovation that isn't invention.
A funny story Matt tells in the book, which illustrates the point, is a Beevor and a rabbit looking at the Hoover Dam, a hand made human dam, and the beaver says to the rabbit, I didn't build it, but it is based on an idea of mine.
[00:14:31]
And of course, getting from a simple beaver dam to the Hoover Dam requires a lot of innovation that isn't invention.
1
We tend to overvalue the idea and undervalue the execution.
Inventors are the ones who come up with ideas. Innovation is the process by which an idea is turned into something practical, reliable, available and affordable for ordinary people. And that's a long slog and it's a lot of hard work and it's often more important, more difficult than the process of coming up with a good idea in the first place.
A funny story Matt tells in the book, which illustrates the point, is a Beevor and a rabbit looking at the Hoover Dam, a hand made human dam, and the beaver says to the rabbit, I didn't build it, but it is based on an idea of mine.
[00:14:31]
And of course, getting from a simple beaver dam to the Hoover Dam requires a lot of innovation that isn't invention.
A funny story Matt tells in the book, which illustrates the point, is a Beevor and a rabbit looking at the Hoover Dam, a hand made human dam, and the beaver says to the rabbit, I didn't build it, but it is based on an idea of mine.
[00:14:31]
And of course, getting from a simple beaver dam to the Hoover Dam requires a lot of innovation that isn't invention.
2
If you look at companies like Amazon and people like Thomas Edison, their stories can often be told as a series of failures, which ulitmately lead to success.
Matt tries to not use the word creativity or creative people, because it tends to imply that a special sort of juice runs in the vein of inventors that doesn't run in the vein of ordinary people.
Greats like Thomas Edison or Jeff Bezos all emphasize the importance of trial and error, failure of getting things wrong and ing again.
Thomas Edison said. I haven't failed. I've just found 10000 ways that don't work.
That doesn't mean, of course, that every failure. Is simply a step towards success.
We can't expect that just because we're failing. We're eventually going to succeed.
We have to still have a system and process that means we're learning from our failures and doing better every time.
Every success has it's failures, but not all failures lead to success.
Greats like Thomas Edison or Jeff Bezos all emphasize the importance of trial and error, failure of getting things wrong and ing again.
Thomas Edison said. I haven't failed. I've just found 10000 ways that don't work.
That doesn't mean, of course, that every failure. Is simply a step towards success.
We can't expect that just because we're failing. We're eventually going to succeed.
We have to still have a system and process that means we're learning from our failures and doing better every time.
Every success has it's failures, but not all failures lead to success.
2
If you look at companies like Amazon and people like Thomas Edison, their stories can often be told as a series of failures, which ulitmately lead to success.
Matt tries to not use the word creativity or creative people, because it tends to imply that a special sort of juice runs in the vein of inventors that doesn't run in the vein of ordinary people.
Greats like Thomas Edison or Jeff Bezos all emphasize the importance of trial and error, failure of getting things wrong and ing again.
Thomas Edison said. I haven't failed. I've just found 10000 ways that don't work.
That doesn't mean, of course, that every failure. Is simply a step towards success.
We can't expect that just because we're failing. We're eventually going to succeed.
We have to still have a system and process that means we're learning from our failures and doing better every time.
Every success has it's failures, but not all failures lead to success.
Greats like Thomas Edison or Jeff Bezos all emphasize the importance of trial and error, failure of getting things wrong and ing again.
Thomas Edison said. I haven't failed. I've just found 10000 ways that don't work.
That doesn't mean, of course, that every failure. Is simply a step towards success.
We can't expect that just because we're failing. We're eventually going to succeed.
We have to still have a system and process that means we're learning from our failures and doing better every time.
Every success has it's failures, but not all failures lead to success.
3
Collaboration is one of the greatest tools humanity has.
Matt references a lovely essay, called Pencil, written by an economist named Leonard Reid in 1958.
[00:32:54]
It's written by a pencil and the pencil is trying to understand its own origins. How did it come into the world? And it's researched it and it's discovered that it's made of wood and it's made of graphite and it's got paint on the outside and the razor in the end and so on. And so it traces the origin of these materials and it discovers that the wood came from a tree that was cut down in Oregon by a lumberjack who was drinking coffee at the time and using a chainsaw, which was made by somebody else.
There's an enormous network of people went into manufacturing this one pencil. And yet not one of them knows how to make a pencil. Not even the person working in the pencil factory, because they don't know how to cut down a tree. So when you to see the world in this way. It makes it clear what amazing collaboration is going on the whole time between us through the medium of exchange, through me doing what I'm good at and you doing what you're good at and us sharing the results on a massive scale.
[00:32:54]
It's written by a pencil and the pencil is trying to understand its own origins. How did it come into the world? And it's researched it and it's discovered that it's made of wood and it's made of graphite and it's got paint on the outside and the razor in the end and so on. And so it traces the origin of these materials and it discovers that the wood came from a tree that was cut down in Oregon by a lumberjack who was drinking coffee at the time and using a chainsaw, which was made by somebody else.
There's an enormous network of people went into manufacturing this one pencil. And yet not one of them knows how to make a pencil. Not even the person working in the pencil factory, because they don't know how to cut down a tree. So when you to see the world in this way. It makes it clear what amazing collaboration is going on the whole time between us through the medium of exchange, through me doing what I'm good at and you doing what you're good at and us sharing the results on a massive scale.
3
Collaboration is one of the greatest tools humanity has.
Matt references a lovely essay, called Pencil, written by an economist named Leonard Reid in 1958.
[00:32:54]
It's written by a pencil and the pencil is trying to understand its own origins. How did it come into the world? And it's researched it and it's discovered that it's made of wood and it's made of graphite and it's got paint on the outside and the razor in the end and so on. And so it traces the origin of these materials and it discovers that the wood came from a tree that was cut down in Oregon by a lumberjack who was drinking coffee at the time and using a chainsaw, which was made by somebody else.
There's an enormous network of people went into manufacturing this one pencil. And yet not one of them knows how to make a pencil. Not even the person working in the pencil factory, because they don't know how to cut down a tree. So when you to see the world in this way. It makes it clear what amazing collaboration is going on the whole time between us through the medium of exchange, through me doing what I'm good at and you doing what you're good at and us sharing the results on a massive scale.
[00:32:54]
It's written by a pencil and the pencil is trying to understand its own origins. How did it come into the world? And it's researched it and it's discovered that it's made of wood and it's made of graphite and it's got paint on the outside and the razor in the end and so on. And so it traces the origin of these materials and it discovers that the wood came from a tree that was cut down in Oregon by a lumberjack who was drinking coffee at the time and using a chainsaw, which was made by somebody else.
There's an enormous network of people went into manufacturing this one pencil. And yet not one of them knows how to make a pencil. Not even the person working in the pencil factory, because they don't know how to cut down a tree. So when you to see the world in this way. It makes it clear what amazing collaboration is going on the whole time between us through the medium of exchange, through me doing what I'm good at and you doing what you're good at and us sharing the results on a massive scale.
Questions
1
Can you think of a failure that really helped you succeed, and a failure that didn't help as much?
1
Can you think of a failure that really helped you succeed, and a failure that didn't help as much?
What else is in the episode
1
How innovation is much more about collaborative rather than lone geniuses.
1
How innovation is much more about collaborative rather than lone geniuses.
2
Why we often default to zero sum thinking instead of growing the pie together.
2
Why we often default to zero sum thinking instead of growing the pie together.
3
Why we end up voicing stronger views and opinions on social media to get heard.
3
Why we end up voicing stronger views and opinions on social media to get heard.
Who is Matt Ridley?
1
Best-selling author on topics such as evolution, the environment, innovation and economics.
A member of The House of Lords in the UK, and was the chairman of the UK bank Northern Rock.
Writes for The Times (London) and Wall Street Journal, and worked for the Economist as science editor and Washington correspondent.
1
Best-selling author on topics such as evolution, the environment, innovation and economics.
A member of The House of Lords in the UK, and was the chairman of the UK bank Northern Rock.
Writes for The Times (London) and Wall Street Journal, and worked for the Economist as science editor and Washington correspondent.
Related episodes
Explore More
