Little Bets: How breakthrough ideas emerge from small discoveries

Ryan Jacoby, an associate partner at IDEO: Questions are the new answers.

Jobs never expected the experience to have practical applications, but it did ten years later when Jobs and Steve Wozniak were developing Apple’s first Macintosh computer. “It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would never have had multiple typefaces or proportionall

Even when we are taught problem solving, such as solving math problems, the focus is generally either on using established methods or logical inference or deduction, both highly procedural in the way they require us to think. There is much less emphasis on developing our creative thinking abilities, our abilities to let our minds run imaginatively

lucky people pay more attention to what’s going on around them than unlucky people.

approach problems in a nonlinear manner using little bets,

pursuing that brilliant vision with unwavering determination can produce remarkable results.

most successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas—they discover them.

The most productive creative people and teams are rigorous, highly analytical, strategic, and pragmatic.

“But by the time they are six and a half years old they stop asking questions because they quickly learn that teachers value the right answers more than provocative questions.”

“illusion of rationality.”