How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom by Matt Ridley. Matt is a British journalist best known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics in The Times. He holds a seat in the British House of Lords.
Matt is certainly writing against government regulation and big business across many established and emerging fields: energy, transportation, food, and computing. Regulation and big businesses are hampering innovation due to oversight. He also addresses early innovations including farming and taming animals including dogs.
Every chapter is certainly intriguing. Vast amounts of stories and historical facts drove each innovation. Matt obviously makes it certainly clear that innovation is within democratic countries where freedom allows for ideas to flourish, leading to inventions.
Chapter 2, focusing upon Public Health innovation certainly reminds the reader how vaccines developed to curb the loss of lives across many continents in our global history. A very refreshing chapter for our COVID era. On the other hand, this would be publishing in May 2020, at the beginning of our pandemic.
The first airplane
Chapter 3, Transport has a particularly great recollection of The Wright Brothers innovation. Unquestionably, this storyline is parallel to Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, and reveals more details to the road both brothers took in finding success at Kitty Hawk.
Many readers will be captivated by the research Matt delivers in round after round of amazing stories of innovation not by the inventor, but rather by those who saw a vision of how inventions lay the foundation of innovations.
The first computer
In fact, Chapter 6 Communication and Computing re-tells the story of the ENIAC. So, Matt describes how he views this system as the first computer:
The ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, which began operating towards the end of 1945 at the University of Pennsylvania. Weighing 30 tons, and the size of a small house, containing over 17,000 vacuum tubes, the ENIAC worked successfully for many years and was the design copied by most computers immediately thereafter. The ENIAC was the brainchild of three people, a cerebral physicist named John Mauchly, a perfectionist engineer named Presper Eckert and an efficient soldier named Herman Goldstine.
p. 283.
My roommate in college was J. Presper Eckert’s grandson. Small world.
Above all, this chapter again delivers on the early innovations of many early computers and search technology including Archie and Altavista paved the way for Google. Above all, this chapter closes on the innovation of Artificial Intelligence and Google’s acquisition of Deep Mind.
Missed opportunity?
As a result, Matt’s key messages around innovation are laid out in Chapter 8: Innovation’s Essentials in which he makes a strong case throughout the book that innovation is in-fact, gradual. He strengthens his position by outlining ten core-elements of innovation. This is certainly a good outline.
In conclusion, Matt provides a solid understanding of innovations across history and lessons to creating and benefitting from inventions and efforts of other talented people. An excellent read for all.
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