“Demonizing innovation is often associated with campaigns to romanticize past products and practices. . . . Opponents of innovation hark back to traditions as if traditions themselves were not inventions at some point in the past.” –Calestous Juma, Innovation and Its Enemies
ESSAYS
We just published our first essay, “Ingenuism: A New Theory of Innovation,” which introduces the concept of Ingenuism and lays out what you can expect from us going forward. From the essay:
Ingenuism is a new economic framework which holds that progress derives from ingenuity supported by the core principles of connection, exploration, and environment.
Connection is the ability for people to observe and learn from other people’s ideas and insights, and to collaborate in ways that generate better ideas and insights.
Exploration is our ability to test out ideas and engage in trial-and-error learning.
Environment is a culture (and legal framework) that not only allows for but encourages exploration, connection, and iterative learning.
When we get connection and exploration in a supportive environment, the result is rapid innovation, value creation, and progress.
You can read the entire essay here.
INSIGHT
Evolution by design
Robert Hendershott
Evolution is the most potent problem-solving force on earth. Evolution created dinosaurs, blue whales, sequoia trees, and human beings. By combining random mutations with an inexorable feedback loop in which beneficial changes dominate over time, evolution leads to organisms better and better equipped to thrive. But as powerful as this process is, it’s painfully slow. Evolutionary progress is measured over centuries, even eons.
In the 20th century, humanity tried to achieve progress through a less-random, more-designed process of top-down central planning. A handful of technocratic rulers claimed they would drive us forward with 5-year plans that told people what to produce, how to produce it, and who would benefit from what was produced. It had the virtue of speed: central planning rapidly destroyed economic progress in every country where it was tried.
The problem is that designed systems for progress often neglect continuous experimentation (random mutations) and the relentless feedback loop. A possible or favored solution becomes THE SOLUTION and the systems stops developing. No further evolution equals no further progress and ultimately regression.
But there’s a third option: evolution by design.
Instead of the random trial-and-error of natural evolution, evolution by design harnesses the non-random power of human ingenuity. We can focus on the directions that are the most likely to succeed, dramatically speeding up the progress that comes from ongoing intelligent experimentation.
But introducing design requires openness and discipline to keep evolution’s potency.
Openness: The seemingly best direction to explore is not always the most fruitful. You can’t know what you don’t know—so some “random” experimentation is necessary to uncover hidden paths to progress. This means that people need to be free to experiment, to try out ideas that others believe are doomed to fail, to engage in permissionless innovation.
Example: Virtually no one thought people would rent out space in their homes to strangers until Airbnb proved they would. mRNA technology had failed to produce results in cancer treatment, but proved itself shockingly effective at stopping COVID-19.
Discipline: These are high-risk investigations—most new ideas are bad. For good ideas to win out, bad ideas must be able to fail. It is easy to fall into the habit of avoiding failure, which neglects unseen opportunities in favor of the safer path. Our goal shouldn’t be to avoid failure, but to support feedback loops that help us rapidly learn from failure and protect our ability to try again.
Example: When SpaceX launches Starship rockets fully expecting them to crash. This is not something that NASA can do! By accepting that failure is part of progress, SpaceX is moving much faster towards making space accessible.
Openness and discipline are products of culture. They arise when a culture values the courageous pursuit of success instead of looking down on failure. They arise when a culture values the benefits of progress more than it fears the discomforts of economic dynamism.
A culture that fosters human ingenuity combines evolution’s potency with the speed of thought. The world faces big challenges. Unleashing the ingenuity of seven billion people will meet them.
QUICK TAKES
We asked for flying cars, we got flying cars
Not yet. But Joby Aviation is looking to launch a flying taxi service by 2024. “It wants to design and manufacture its own fleet of six-rotor, four-passenger electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft, plus operate air-taxi services around the world. ‘We are kind of like Tesla, meets Uber, meets the air,’ says Joby Executive Chairman Paul Sciarra, who is also a Pinterest co-founder. Joby wants to get people places faster and safer, for the same cost as driving—better views, no gridlock.”
The 3D printed home is where the 3D printed heart is
3D printing technology is…um, amazing? In Austin, you can now buy yourself a 3D printed home. “Given that the Vulcan [3D printer] can also be transported and deployed without needing assembly, ICON has been able to use it to 3D print low-cost housing around the world. As long ago as 2018, the company worked with non-profit partner New Story to fabricate a $4,000 350-square foot house in Texas, as an early proof-of-concept for investors.” (Photos of the finished products here.)
That’s incredible. But it’s nothing compared to what’s coming. Right now, for instance, a company called IVIVA is working on—get this—3D printed organs. “Founder, Research Professor and Mass General Hospital surgeon Harald Ott (an uber rare ‘triple threat’ academic) . . . identified maturing innovations in stem cell research, microfluidics and 3D printing that could be combined to recapitulate organ function into implantable units.” In a world where only 20% of transplant patients actually find a donor, this could be transformational.
Who are you going to antitrust?
Attorney General Merrick Garland was sworn in a few weeks ago. During his confirmation hearings, he said his first love was…antitrust. And it turns out that wielding antitrust law against Big Tech is one of the few things Republicans and Democrats agree on. But antitrust is notoriously vague and encourages the most innovative companies to be risk averse. So far the conversation has focused on the potential negatives of Big Tech. But we should also look carefully at potential negatives of antitrust.
Your competition is the future
Speaking of antitrust. . . . Washington assesses competition by looking at a company’s current market share of a super-narrow market. Real competition comes from the future, as a changing world and new problem solvers can quickly turn the Googles of today into the Yahoo!s of tomorrow. John Tamny explains.
Google and others who dominate in the present recognize that market power is the most ephemeral of concepts. Translated, there’s no such thing as a technological frontier. The possibilities for progress are endless. Google understands this intimately, which explains its “Other Bets” concept. The latter is recognition that major market share in (for instance) search will not be the source of Google’s ongoing success. True dominance born of meeting and inventing the needs of users and customers will result from relentless tinkering that once again rushes an unimaginable technological future into the present.
Hot takes on deep fakes
A viral video of something that sorta looked and sounded like Tom Cruise had people freaking out over deep fakes—basically, videos where you can make it seem like someone did and said something they didn’t say or do. As with all new technologies, there are legitimate concerns. But there are no grounds to think the sky is falling and in a year people will be using deep fakes to start a nuclear war. As Jeffrey Westling explains in this white paper, we’ve dealt with this sort of thing before and we’re really good at adapting to new technologies.
Who will lead 21st century innovation?
Innovation depends on a supportive environment, including one that minimizes the barriers between ideas and execution. Matt Ridley argues that China has been the world’s innovation leader since, as “long as they are not trying to invent democracy, or a new political party, [Chinese] innovators are surprisingly free to try anything.” But that’s changing, and under Xi Jinping, “Chinese citizens are increasingly subject to arbitrary and authoritarian restraints.”
Which country will be the next innovation leader, in Ridley’s view? “My money is on India.” Maybe. My money is still on the US, though perhaps Ridley would call that irrational optimism.
The Great Stagnation Debate
Are there grounds to be optimistic about the future? We say yes. The most compelling counterargument is the “Great Stagnation” thesis. If you haven’t been following along, Jason Crawford of Roots of Progress sums up the debate here and here. Economist Noah Smith, meanwhile, is penning a series answering the “techno-pessimists.” Most recent installment here.
We’ll have more to say on this at some point, but for now I’ll say this: even if progress has slowed in some respects over the last few decades (probably!), there are good reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for progress in the near future.
Drone strike
We’ve only started to scratch the surface of drone technology’s potential. Already drones are improving energy, construction, agriculture, and much more. But while we wait for the inevitable triumph of our robot overlords, take a minute to enjoy this insanely fun video of a drone’s visit to a bowling alley.
INCREASE YOUR INGENUITY
Jerry Seinfeld talks about the value to a comedian of being continually annoyed by the world. Innovation comes from the same place: refusing to be satisfied with the status quo.
The difference? Comedians complain. Innovators create to overcome life’s annoyances. With enough time and ingenuity, the only thing comedians will have to complain about is how unannoying the world has become.
RECOMMENDATION
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
A fascinating take on the question: How do you create a business that produces innovation on demand? Netflix’s answer is that you have to build a company around talent, freedom, and feedback.
By increasing talent density (“adequate performance gets a generous severance package”) you can strip away bureaucratic rules that slow down your high performers and prevent them from making independent decisions. What high performers need is not bureaucratic rules but context and rapid, honest feedback.
Until next time,
Don Watkins
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