innovation culture

One is simply the sheer difficulty of building a modern commercial aircraft, which is probably one of the five or six most complex technical achievements of modern civilization (along with jet engines, leading-edge semiconductor fabrication, and nuclear submarines). Commercial aircraft must couple a high level of performance in some of the most... See more

Startups, he argues, can be engineered in the same way. “Startups excel when they put all their energy into one main thing ,” he says. “If you want to hit escape velocity, your startup should be designed to focus on that. In other words, it better taste good. But if your startup is designed to have several teams all equal in size, where’s your... See more

Listen deeply to what people have to say about your brand and your product. The answer key is already in front of us. This is not new, but it is becoming more and more important, and rarely is it being implemented at the right moments, (again, during R&D vs. post-campaign analysis.)

How do we do this? I’ve dubbed it “Layering & Triangulating.”... See more

The technocracy has evolved radically. Technical knowledge based on science has replaced military and theological knowledge as the source of power, but the distance is not as large as you might think. In modern technocratic power, the distinction between hard-edged scientific knowledge and softer ideological paradigm knowledge is blurry. We have... See more

Put through that process, reality usually hits like a truck. Many concepts that sound good on paper are infeasible to implement, or simply don’t produce the expected results. It’s frustrating when that happens, of course, but the pace of experimentation and learning at a startup is unparalleled. I think this is an especially important form of rigor... See more

This silicon union of intellect and action creates a culture fond of big ideas. The expectation that anyone sufficiently intelligent can grasp, and perhaps master, any conceivable subject incentivizes technologists to become conversant in as many subjects as possible. The technologist is thus attracted to general, sweeping ideas with application... See more

the emerging technologies of today should be analogized to events like Genghis Khan’s rise in the 12th and 13th centuries or the proliferation of personal ranged weapons like longbows and muskets. While the technologies themselves are interesting enough, it’s their obvious capacity for triggering entirely new evolutionary arcs for humanity that are... See more

The West Coast quiet served its purpose. In isolation I developed theories about creativity and collaboration. But theories only get you so far on their own. At some point you have to go beyond putting ideas into the world and get to work manifesting them.