Quote

Most companies don't have the luxury of focusing exclusively on innovation. They have to innovate while stamping out zillions of widgets or processing billions of transactions.

Innovation is this amazing intersection between someone's imagination and the reality in which they live. The problem is, many companies don't have great imagination, but their view of reality tells them that it's impossible to do what they imagine.

Innovation happens because there are people out there doing and trying a lot of different things.

Companies have too many experts who block innovation. True innovation really comes from perpendicular thinking.

If companies don't think systemically enough - if they try to capture too much of the value - eventually, innovation moves somewhere else.

Innovation accelerates and compounds. Each point in front of you is bigger than anything that ever happened.

Ultimately, innovation depends on the people with advanced skills who have the ideas, and on the business risk-takers willing to back them.

Innovation is taking two things that already exist and putting them together in a new way.

Everybody believes in innovation until they see it. Then they think, 'Oh, no; that'll never work. It's too different.'

For most western executives, innovation is about breakthrough technology or innovation. If it's not breakthrough, it's not interesting, and it's all about technology and products.