The art of invention with Nathan Myhrvold
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I love intellectual arbitrage where you find solutions someone has over here that could apply to a different area.

Everyone is adam grant. Looking back to rethinking my podcast on the science of what makes us tick with the ted audio collective. I'm an organizational psychologist, and i'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

I guess today is Nathan miro. He's something of a modern renaissance here. N, A, P, H, D. And applied math to the postdoc with Stephen hawking and became microsoft s first chief technology officer. He's the cofounder of intellectual ventures, a company that develops and acquires patents, and he loves to invent solutions to problems.

When we recruit other scientists, I was like to say, I need to find someone who's crazy enough to think it's possible, but not so crazy to think they already did.

IT Nathan has also moonlighted as a dinosaur hunter. Yep, his team has discovered a record number of t. Rex skeleton.

His published peer reviewed research in fields ranging from p. lio. Biology to astronomy to climate science. And in his spare time, he's an award winning nature photographer and chef.

He's won a James beard cook book of the year war and been a guest judge on top chef today. He's going to chAllenge you to rethink some of your creative process. I'd love to kick off by asking you, when did you know that you wanted to become an inventer?

Oh, pride. My whole life. My mom says that when I was too, I told her I was gonna a scientist.

What were you tinkering with in childhood?

Oh, I took lots of things apart and put them back together again. The dread thing is, when you had spare parts at the end, and you think him where those really necessary or not. When I was a kid on old dv meant I had tubes in IT, and the tubes are really cool because they would glow when they were running, and of course, is also super high voltage in there.

And so I kind of knew that if I screwed up, IT could in badly. But fortunately I didn't. But later I take my mom's car apart and put them back together again, rebuilt the ancient course.

These days, you don't need to take something apart in a hot works, because the internet will tell you. And if I was a kid today, that's probably what I would do. In fact, I do do that lot.

given that you can look at the answer so quickly. Now is IT a little bit like a magic trick that's been ruined when somebody tells you the secret is opposed to figure you IT out for yourself.

On one hand, I would tend to say yes, that it's cooler and maybe more instructive to do IT yourself. But at the same time, I know that that is A A sort of a meme that has run through human culture forever, which is, yeah, those new fangled kids don't have IT as good as I did back in my day. Sunny, let me tell you, we had to take our tube TV apart with our bare hands.

And the fact is that each generation winds up overcoming the supposed things that aren't as good. The most interesting inventions are those that haven't worked yet. Of course, that's also part of the deal, is that inventing something that is obvious that I can work is different than trying to make something work that's never, ever worked before.

And in both are important. In fact, the incremental inventions that improve things a little bit and a little bit, those incremental ones are way more numerous, but collectively hugely important. But then every now then, you have really been breakthrough, and and you love those too.

I want to talk about how you get to those breakthrough. Your invention sessions are legendary. Talk to me about how those work. I've whole host the questions about them, but the place to start for me is an organizational psychologist is how do you decide who's in the room in the first place?

You want to get people who have, who knew something about the problem. I am so ideational someone who have some experience with IT, but too much experience of the problem isn't helpful. Those people tend to be debby downer when IT comes to new ideas.

Not always, not always, but you have to watch out that you don't fall into the well, we tried all that is impossible mode of thinking then IT IT helps to have some people who have a lot of deep experience in other parts of technology that might be useful. So there's a ton of different inventions in our modern life that are some combination of physical things and software things. And it's hard to invest such a thing if you don't have a good understanding of both in the room.

But mostly what you want are people who are inventive, people who are willing to think outside the box, people who are willing to say stuff that might seem crazy at first. Then you have to be careful that you don't let other people censure them too much. Now I say too much because, of course, an idea that completely fails.

You don't want to spend lots of time trying to beat a dead horse. But at the same time, if you are too negative, too early, then as just as a social construct, IT helps prevent people from coming up with the new idea. People can invent things that they don't know that much about. That sounds counter intuit very much.

Tell me more. But A A phenomenon .

that happens quite often if someone will say, oh, why don't we think about IT like this and that may not be right, but it's different enough that somebody else is, oh, well, that's cool. But how about like that? And then somebody else is, oh, but that's very much like this problem here that people already not solve.

And so you get is sort of like a puzzle. You don't have all the puzzle pieces in any one person's hand. If they start, if you are showing your puzzle pieces, they can say, all, look, I got a piece of fits with that. I ve got a piece with fits with this and you put them together and you've got something. It's pretty cool.

I think that sounds like you're trying to to solve a few problems. The first one is avoiding cognitive entrenchment. Yeah, people start to take for granted assumptions that need to be questioned because though they've just been too steeped in the old way of doing things. And then i'm figure about some evidence in the brainstorming literature suggesting that in a environment, criticism hinders creativity, but in a collaboration environment, a little bit of criticism can actually stimulate creativity because IT raises the bar yeah and people don't feel like they're a attacked personally. They actually feel like somebody is trying to help them rule out bad ideas so they can get to the good ones.

If you ran attracted him by having a beer chase, the the runners IT might be effective, but also might be scary. And off putting in, people would quit the tracked team. If you have some competition between the runners, that's a much more mild form of stimulus than the bear chasing them.

I think there is often a trade off on the strong time, weak thai dimension. We know that people know each other well, that their ideas fly much more freely, but they also attend to Carry a lot of redundant knowledge. And we realize are kind of the opposite. They open up fresh perspectives, but it's hard for people to be candid and take risks in those environments. So how do you deal with those dynamics?

If you have a couple people can refine for each other, then the new person is more likely to be able to try in and say, oh, why don't we try this? Because they see it's OK, they see is okay, did not be successful and everything they get encouraged like someone mumbles something, you say, what was that and you kind of DRAM out of of IT.

And so it's one of these things where, well, much like being in the interviewer, what's the right way to be an interviewer? Well, there's lots of rules you can put down, but ultimately is a case by case situation. And if you're doing an interview with multiple people simultaneously is even more case by case because the interpersonal dynamics comes up on one hand, you can't schedule success.

You can say, adam, we're going to get together this afternoon for two and f hours and solve this problem. Or we will make at least a stage three milestone towards that problem, then work that way. On other hand, if you do push IT something enough, you have a reasonable chance of finding something.

Now, isn't I was the thing you set out to do. You have to decide what is your goal? Is your goal to create new inventions, even if there is someone coLoring outside the lines and not the problem you were talking about? Or is IT you have to solve this one problem? There is a difference in the invention and research.

Research can involve invention and often does. But it's also very common that a researcher will work on one problem for twenty years and they're being their heads against the wall and maybe they get IT in the twenty first year or maybe they don't. Well, that's about a problem central view. They have so much commitment of the problem that they will continue beating their head against the wall because it's so important to solve that problem. Well, as in an invention session, we'd say, look, don't keep in your head against the wall, give the wall a couple of good heart cracks with your head and then moved to software spot of the wall because in our experiences, there's always a software spot of the wall that's .

such a great way to framework. There's always a softer spot on the wall. I'm reminded of the evidence that roughly half of all patents come from spontaneous discoveries yeah, as much as you might want to find the solution by just staring at the problem and applying a structure, sometimes it's it's the unexpected moment that leads to A A leap of discovery or invention. And I think it's tRicky to stay open to those though when you've got a problem that you're really committed to solving.

That's why in inventing sessions, we only have a weak commitment to our initial idea. There's a variety things you can do with problems you haven't solved yet, but if you only focus on the things that are insoluble, it's gonna really tough. Engineering is also different than researched that wave.

You're an airplane company making a new airplane. That's what you want to do, is make a new airplane. Now IT IT happens.

People trying to make a new airplane came up with all kinds of really cool things. So an example is in computer graphics. There's a type of curve that used to model services, and it's widely used.

It's called the beast eline by engineers and sciences at boeing that we're looking for curves to model airplane shapes. And this really cool set of curves and IT turns that it's not just your plane shapes. You do not all kinds of things that way. And every three d modeling program that does realistic looking services uses beep splines. Um so that was a happy accident of trying to make jets.

IT reminds me also of a case where some some digital imaging technology that was invented for the the hubble space telescope ended up revolutionizing breast cancer.

That's example of something I call idea arbitrage and financial markets arbitrary is where you discover all the Price of wall is this amount in new zealand. It's a different amount in new york. So let's buy well one place, sell at the other place and and help bridge this gap.

Well, in technology, intellectual pursuits, there's almost always arbitrator opportunities. The problem with the hubble space telescope was that the mirror was made badly, and there's all story about why that happened. But then people's will there way we can solve age the images? And they came up with all of these very clever algorithms using A D convolution to correct for the shady mirror on the original hubble.

But course, someone IT percuss tes through the system and someone to say, yeah, I want to share on these X A images. There's not as as good as they could be. Let's try this thing and it's a huge uh, benefit.

NASA, by the way, has had tremendous amounts of that in its history. The Apollo space program and other programs invented lots of stuff that was hugely useful elsewhere. Uh, so you could argue that the societal benefit, for example, sending man of the moon.

IT wasn't just getting people on the moon. IT was this incredible amount of technology that was invented that then was very material in the united states and other parts, the western world becoming leaders and electronics and various kinds of software. Another thing, so IT was hugely useful for accidental reason. I encountered .

a lot of people who live in fear that someone else is gonna steal their idea. And my reaction .

to that is not exactly.

You don't realize that creativity is abundant. It's actually execution that scarce. And i'd love to hear you riff on that theme a little bit.

It's totally the case. So when we recruit vendors that I would say who's gonna take my you're going to take my idea. I said, well, if you're only have one good idea, you're right.

You should keep IT. And if that next idea is going to give you the next trillion dollar company, oh yeah, you all sleep out and just go for IT. And i'll be able to say, I knew you were. But if you are the kind of person we really want, an invention session, you have tons of ideas every day, and you have more than you could possibly do anything with execution is perhaps that the narrow is part of the final down at the bottom. This is whole function of how do you develop these ideas, how do you Carry them forward and home them, and at all, is part of getting the stuff to work.

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Got into a duck com. Let me see if we can run to a lightning around. You're ready for some rapid fire questions. I'll try, right? What is the worst advice you've ever gone?

Life rewards you for specializing in something, and i've never been able to to stop being interested in many things. So it's actually good advice. I ve just never abled to .

and let what is an unpopular opinion, your happy defend.

We made the world closer together by fighting around a lot. We were just waiting for there to be some germ to take advantage of IT. And I wrote these long memos and reports about that.

And it's gonna a real problem theyll be a antia pendell c they'll be bioterrorism. I'll be something else. They'll be horrible. IT was completely predictable, but the world did nothing about IT.

Let's go to a more optimistic prediction then, which is if you can take a time machine fifty years to the future, what do you think is is going to be the biggest surprise or the most exciting breakthrough?

That's almost impossible by definition, of course, because if if I expect IT, then I can't really be much of a surprise.

Can IT surprise to the rest of us.

But clear to you, have a that, oh, evidence of extra real intelligence would be a super cool one. IT might cause humans to stick together a little bit more to know that we're not alone uh that ah because where humans are so good at doing that, us them thing and IT be great if IT was us for them but they were too far a way to actually worry about at a more practical level. Everything except accidental death ought to be solved in fifty years.

That would be .

exciting if we solved things other than accidental deaf. We'd still have a expected lifetime about three hundred years because there's enough accidents. I got that kid that adam is such a shame. He was a kid. He was only one hundred and three when .

he died .

in that when a bus hit him, we gotta a stop. This bullshit. And of course, if that's true, I don't need a time machine. If that happens, not need a time machine to know what happens fifty years from now.

Fair enough. right? You're talking about physics. I have to ask you, how did working with Stephen n. Hocking change you?

Well, I think two things really stuck with me a lot. One was his tremendous support for the people that worked with him. There was a invitation only conference that Stephen was invited to, and I was only for the head of each research group was a very small group.

And Steven wants to send one of his students because that students theis was an exactly this and a the regulators of neon started, you can only send one person from your group. So even sent the student with the notes, say, i'm sorry if you didn't have room for me which, of course, the idea you would jump rank and senate. This kid in your your stead was shocking to everyone, but what could they do? But the other thing that in the main thing about Steven is here's a guy with his insane amounts of physical chAllenges.

And yet he had a great, upbeat attitude. He loved to tell jokes. The jokes were frustrated with the point of being almost painful, but he still did IT.

And because in the era I was with him, he didn't have his speech emphasized yet, so he would talk, and the talking really wouldn't sound the human speech. You had listened extremely carefully, and then you also had to guess what the words were gonna. So he would repeat punch line you three, four, five times.

And the tension, it's just going to be unbearable, but he would just sold your on. And then finally we'd get IT in. Of course, we'd all burst out laughing. But if a guy can do that with that sort of a situation, what the hell right do I have to feel sorry for myself?

You're an amnesty curious person. What's the question you have for me as a psychologist?

Well, the root question, but it's one I think about, uh, a lot, is does the science of creativity actually help people to be more creative? Or is IT more about a study into itself? No, I don't mean that is something quite as rude as IT sounds.

I don't comparative literature is a academic field, and it's not obvious that has any impact on how people write books. You people that are creating literature and you have people who are studying IT and they rarely intersect and IT often doesn't go well. When they do, you could feel the room with books of on brainstorming and creative idea generation and so forth. And i've tried to read some of those, and some of them I may have taken on board in some implication, but anyway, respond. Yes, no.

I don't think it's a rude question at all. I think it's, I mean, the kind of question that I care a lot about the essential scientist s to one in the know, does the knowledge were generating actually help anyone? And the answer may well be no.

I think in this case is qualified. Yes, I think that I found the science of creativity useful in three ways. One is that IT hopes people rule out things that are kind of productive.

So we know, for example, that large group brain storming sessions produce fewer ideas and worst ideas than smaller groups. Begin with independent thought. That's an easy one.

yeah. I think the second thing that does is that sometimes helps people avoided becoming their own worst enemies. So we know, for example, of when people run out of ideas, they tend to stop.

But if you give them a little nudge and say, actually, your first ideas are rarely your best ideas. Why would you spend another twenty minutes on this? Then they start to go on more random walks, and that's useful. And then I think the third thing is that I think that the science of creativity probably teaches us a little bit about what kinds of creative collisions are most likely to yield fruit. So we know, for example, that if people have a mix of shared and unshared experiences, if you have some people that you know really well in other people you don't know well, then you get that nice baLance of creating a common language, but also bringing in some fresh ideas. And so I think about those ideas is pretty useful, but they might be more helpful for kind of incremental innovation than major breakthrough.

But incremental innovation is super important.

I think so. Too bad i'm biased. so. Before we rap, I wanted ask you about your comment about breath and depth, because I think, on the one hand, IT sounded like self criticism. On the other hand, you might be the closest thing we have to a modern .

day renaissance. Yes, some people born before your time, you're telling him, was born five hundred years. Too late.

too late. You miss your window, Nathan. You're stuck improving windows and hunting for dinosaurs when you could have been painting the mona lisa.

Well, so as they say, the world rewards specialization. The more specialized you become, the often the Better you can become IT at an area, and the more likely you are to get lots of societal rewards, income, all sorts of other things. It's true that it's hard for me to focus on just one thing.

I'm not scatter brained or or have A D H, D in the the conventional sense. I can go very deep in things, but I find lots of things interesting. I'm always very curious.

And that's actually when the great things about the internet for me is when I was a kid. If I was curious about how does this work, IT was a lot harder. The thrash hold of being curious enough to, you'll find out, was very high. And now the thresh hold is much, much lower. This is what works for me.

And I found ways to make IT actually a little bit of an advantage I can even tell you oh, that's the secret at them that's the secret all of this um but to go back to Steven, I wanted a serious conversation with him about his disability and this condition he had A S and he said, oh, it's actually advantage I said, Steven, look, it's a great thing to say but like we're alone here and he said, no, no it's least like obviously his life would have been different if he didn't have IT given he has that he thought as an advantage because he said they don't make me go on committees. They don't make me do all this bullet shit. I'd have to do otherwise he said when I came to an idea he was forced to always simplify IT because he couldn't. If he had a pencil paper, he could keep ten things in his mind at one time, but doing IT all in his head, and with people, ring some stuff down and so forth. But still he had to focus on a smaller number of things.

Well, who might have added Stephen hawking, but I don't know if if I had entirely by the case that, that this disability was an advantage. But I think there's a profound point there that every disadvantage has advantages.

Well, you find that with people, for example, who are disley ic, who they think in a different way than people aren't, just like a particular when IT comes to text and liniers thought. So they have to think none in nearly, and yet they can be incredibly successful, although the school system and lots of other aspects of ordinary life penalized them heavily, which is unfortunate.

That's an example of the world missing a resource that could be great for us. Other people that are not neurotypical people. They are on the spectrum, as they say, also have a tremendous amount to offer or can have a tremendous amount to offer, but because they have unusual ways of interaction, is hard to work with them.

And so we tend to only utilize that intellectual resource. That's a tragedy. Now it's a tragedy that has a hopeful element because over time, we've also managed to stop being quite so prejudice against the whole set of other folks that we also used to margin ze and not gain the full fruit of their intellectual efforts. So hopefully that this will continue.

I certainly hope that does well, anything I think we are at time. So i'll rap us here, but this was other really delightful, and I look forward to the next one.

Okay, great. Thanks, adam.

Nathan underscores that people who live in fear of others stealing their ideas generally don't have that many good ideas. Ideas or a dima does not. The real barrier innovation is people figuring out how to make their visions of reality.

What prevails is rarely. The best idea is usually the best implementation. Rethinking is hosting by me, adam grant. The show is part of the ted audio collective, and this episode was produced in mixed by cosmic standard.

Our producers are handy kingsway mow in asia simpson, our editor is only hundreds sale zar, our fact checkers. Paul derbin original music by hansel sea and an elson lin brand. Our team includes a lisa smith, j winning ads, rock and high lash, bambang chang, Julia dickerson and with me, pennant Rogers.

You know, if someone is so shy about expressing the ideas that they can't be drawn out in front of other people unless they know them super well, well, then they are not a great choice for an invention session unless they bring some friends with them. And and you can do that session. prox.