People who want to seem smarter than the average researcher or business leader pretend that they can cultivate radical innovation. Is there evidence that they can? “Innovation,” “Scaling,” “Disruption” are all terms that are easy to apply in hindsight and toss around at cocktail parties but not so easy to engender.
Some people think that “breaking it” and then scrambling to fix it in a new way spurs radical innovation. Doesn’t that sound a little like vandalism or clear-cutting? Sure, something will always grow or be repaired. Is that innovation? We even see evidence of this theory in politics, but with very little evidence for the success of the model.
Peter Thiel has a model. Does it work?
