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innovation

Wednesday 21st of January 2026

1%ers The latest real estate trend among internet billionaires and hedge fund tycoons is, apparently, buying bunkers. These individuals, who have made fortunes disrupting the present, predicting the future and then making the future happen, are preparing for the end of civilization. … This new group of tech-savvy survivalists prefers the name “preppers”. It implies something preppier than the redneck gun-nuts in battered pick-ups with whom they might otherwise be confused. Financial Times, April 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Artificial intelligence AI is quite possibly the most important — and best — thing our civilisation has ever created, certainly on par with electricity and microchips, and probably beyond these. Marc Andreesssen, tech bro and mega AI investor © 2023 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In the ten most dynamic states nearly 13 percent of the population was born abroad, compared with 6.7 per cent in the least dynamic quintile. West Virginia, which is the least dynamic, ranks last for immigration with 1.4 per cent of its population born abroad. Financial Times, May 24, 2017 [economic dynamism measures change in the number of companies, share of jobs in recently launched companies, labor force participation rate, etc.] © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The most covetable trend in China is the most basic: education. China last year produced roughly nine times as many graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as the US. Financial Times, September 19, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Change The trick for individuals, and for larger entities, is to understand that malaise can be the worse fate. Crises often force change. Tolerable underperformance is, or can be, for keeps. … Cause and effect are hard to establish, but the record keeps throwing up these chronological proximities of crisis and profound innovation. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, September 1, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Innovation The ATM has been the only useful innovation in banking for the past 20 years. Paul Volcker, December 8, 2009 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Innovation  David Edgerton of King's College London,  Britain's foremost historian of technology, argues that “Only in techno-nationalist fantasies…does national invention drive national economic growth. In the real world, global innovation leads to national growth, and national innovation leads to global growth.” At most times and places, most of the technology which creates growth is imported from elsewhere, not made at home. The Economist, January 16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Innovation The idea of a single moment of inspiration, of the apple landing on young Isaac Newton's head, stirs the soul, even if it turns out to be apocryphal. In contrast, the idea that innovation occurs in fits and starts, with one person adapting a concept already in use and another figuring out how to make a profit from it, has little appeal. The world likes heroes, even if the worshipful story of one person's heroics is rarely an accurate representation of the complex path of technological advance. Marc Levinson, The Box © 2016 Kwiple.com
Innovation M & A is the new R & D © 2015 Kwiple.com
Innovation One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions. Werner von Braun  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Innovation  The process of approval was at odds with the process of improvement. Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, March 8, 2021, on how making even the most minor change to an FDA-approved artificial heart requires that the entire heart be re-submitted for approval, which may take a decade  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Innovation To innovate, you must make  saying at DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiple dictionary patent troll (pat'nt trōl), n. Synonym for extortiuonist. © 2015 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Being a patent troll © 2016 Kwiple.com
Markets Technology has made markets faster, but arguably not better. It certainly hasn't made them cheaper. As academics such as Thomas Philippon have shown, none of the many technolog- ical “innovations” in the financial markets since 1880 has actually lowered the cost of financial intermediation. Someone is making as much money as ever. Fintech just makes it tougher to see who. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, July 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Offshoring Some firms recognise that outsourcing production to cheaper locations has eroded innovation, says Ludovico Alcorta at UNIDO [United Nations Industrial Development Organization]. When production is moved elsewhere, opportunities to learn how to do it do it better are often lost. The development of new products and processes can suffer, as can interactions with research organisations and universities. Economist, January 14, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Being for regulation means being against innovation © 2017 Kwiple.com
Snapshot A business with an exceedingly low ratio of invention to success. Facebook portrayed by Timothy Wu in The Attention Merchants © 2016 Kwiple.com
Success Garlanded go-getters like Midgley are walking arguments against success. There's a lesson for us all here. It's worth asking every morning: am I Thomas Midgley? Should I go to work today, or will the world be better off if I stay in bed playing League of Legends  in my underwear? “Did little damage” is a good line to have on one’s tombstone. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, December 11/12, 2021 [Midgley invented leaded gasoline, which ended “knocking” in engines but killed millions, and chlorofluorocarbon, used in air conditioning but depleted ozone in the upper atmosphere] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Tech bros say If we can't buy it, clone the features of a fast-growing startup app  --> © 2018 Kwiple.com
 
Technology When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck. Paul Virilio © 2021 Kwiple.com