There is often a gap between how fast technology changes, and how fast human institutions respond to this change. This Governance Gap is one of the core problems of management today.
Here are some things I learned from Stan Metcalfe today: We can’t make money by making bets that everyone agrees will pay off. That means that innovative ideas will often look nuts when we first start working on them. Nevertheless, we have to give them a try.
Mary Meeker’s annual report on internet trends shows how the market for smartphone operating systems has been completely transformed in eight years. This holds some important innovation lessons.
Do you know who invented the computer? Most people don’t – I’m not even sure that there is an answer to that question. The fact that we don’t know tells us a lot about how innovation actually works.
When markets change, we often try to keep using the same tools that we’ve always used, in the same way. This will lead to failure. We need to innovate the tools we use, or innovate the business model around the old tools.
Innovation drives economic growth, but the relationship between innovation and inequality is much less clear. It is possible to be an innovative country with low levels of inequality.
Jeff Bezos’ annual letters to shareholders provide some interesting insights into how Amazon has managed to continue to innovate, even as they’ve grown to become enormous.
I’m in Palo Alto right now, and electric cars are all over the road. This is a pretty good sign that they are traveling up the innovation diffusion s-curve, and are coming soon to a road near you.
In 1993 you needed a phone, a laptop, a camcorder, a palm pilot, a watch, a walkman and a pager to do most of what you can do today with your smartphone. That’s amazing, and there are some important innovation lessons that follow from this.
Change is one constant in business. The evolution of operating system market share demonstrates some important lessons for innovating in a constantly shifting environment.