You want to win in business. The trick is over time you've got to be non-consensus

contrarian and turn out to be right. If you're going along with the consensus and

you're right, you will go out of business. So you need to find ways to be non-consensus to be

contrarian and turn out to be right. Right now a really easy way to be contrarian

or non-consensus is to have a long-term view. To be optimistic about the future,

which right now uniquely in the last couple of decades,

it's also contrarian to be an optimist.

I'm Mary Long, and that's Elliot Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation and author of the book, The

Illusion of Innovation. Do you ever get the sense that innovation has become a buzzword?

Something that a lot of companies talk about, but few actually do?

Well, Elliot Parker's had the same thought.

But he's a big believer in the idea that genuine innovation can keep companies alive, even in an era of

shortening corporate life cycles.

So how can investors separate real innovation from Muir Theater?

Ricky Mulvey sat down with Parker to find out.

I'm going to start with an obvious question for you.

It might not be an obvious question for our listeners though.

Big companies, they got a lot of the firepower, they got trillions in capital.

Why is it so hard for these big institutions to create society changing innovations?

Yeah, it's a very good question.

I think it may be one of the most important questions to ask about our economy right now,

because if you go back 50, 60 years a lot of the

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