How to stop breakthroughs & innovations?

Hi friends, let’s dive into breakthroughs and innovations and understand what can stop them from happening.

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The Range - by David Epstein

David Epstein's “The Range” describes why generalists triumph in a specialised world. Based on the complexity of today’s modern world problems, the author argues that knowledge from multiple fields fosters solutions.

David writes that “modern world problems are wicked” and to solve them, it’s required to use “conceptual reasoning skills that can connect new ideas and work across contexts”.

In science, for example, breakthroughs came “from people who changed disciplines or genres”. One of the reasons is that people “with the ability to borrow ideas from other fields, bring a new perspective into their area”.

However, this doesn’t mean that the specialization of individuals isn’t necessary, what’s important as the author states is the timing of when the specialization happens.
The notion of “range” refers to the knowledge and experience from multiple fields, combined with a late specialization rather than an early specialization.

Openness to unusual approaches plays a key role in letting breakthroughs happen, welcoming experiences and knowledge from different fields can lead to unexpected innovations.

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Market like Zuck again - by Stonks

Innovations and breakthroughs are the focus of tech companies, they pursue them to fuel their growth. The article “Market like Zuck again” published in Stonks, highlights the difficulties for public companies to drive innovation.

For example, in July 2023, Meta’s CEO announced that “the company will focus on efficiency […] while improving business performance” and the company value went up by 500%.

While the rise in valuation is great for shareholders, it also shows that “public markets live from one earnings call to the next”.

Another example is Twitter, which didn’t focus on innovation and was “moving laterally for years”. One of the reasons behind that is the focus of the company on the “J-Curve” which shows that following an action or an event (e.g., investment for future innovation, first mover in a market, etc) “things are going to get worse before they get better”.

And unfortunately “most of the public company CEOs would get fired” if their decisions impact negatively the short-term valuation of the company.

Such “dynamics create barriers to innovate unless CEOs have enough control and are not afraid of being pushed out”.

Business organizations are complex, making it hard for innovations to happen; but by adopting values like openness, and welcoming unusual ways of doing things, they can let breakthroughs arise.

And there, is where the dots connect!

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