Why Innovation Matters (and How Not to Screw It Up), Feat. Matt Ridley

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Twenty-one different people can reasonably claim to have invented the light bulb, but Thomas Edison is the one we know about. Was it just good PR? According to Matt Ridley, it was because Edison was the progenitor of an “innovation factory” that didn’t just create things but brought them to market in a way no one else did. Innovation is one of the most important forces in the economy, and arguably the most important driver of human prosperity over the last century. Yet, for most of its life, it has been viewed as some strange exogenous force, rather than as a discipline that could be understood. In this conversation with NLW and Ridley discuss: Why it took so long for economists to take the study of innovation seriously Why invention is different from innovation Why innovation has tended to concentrate in geographically proximate areas Why free societies produce more innovation than closed societies (including empires) Why China’s innovation production over the last decade may be an exception that proves the rule of innovation thriving in freedom Why government winner picking is a terrible way to inspire innovation Why innovation policy led Matt to support Brexit The rational, optimistic take on the future

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown, an everyday analysis breaking down the most important stories in Bitcoin, crypto, and beyond.
0:12.0	This episode is sponsored by ArisX.com, the Stellar Development Foundation, and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund.
0:20.0	The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.
0:22.6	Here's your host, NLW.
0:27.8	Welcome back to The Breakdown.
0:29.9	It is Wednesday, May 27th, and quick announcement, guys, right before we dive into a really,
0:34.8	really exciting conversation with Matt Ridley, author of the new book,
0:38.2	How Innovation Works, I wanted to share that I am experimenting or about to experiment with some
0:43.4	interesting additional content, bonus content, VIP content, both written and podcast form,
0:49.6	that I really want a set of beta testers to help me out with. So if you are interested in beta testing
0:55.6	a bunch of unique content around the same themes of the breakdown as a supplement,
1:00.6	as an extension of the breakdown, DM me at NLW on Twitter and let me know, or email me
1:06.4	at nLW at whittamore.io, and I will get you in this beta test for June. But without any further ado,
1:13.2	let's talk about my interview today. Matt Ridley is an extremely interesting thinker. You may know
1:20.2	him from his TED Talk from 2010 when ideas have sex. You may know him from his book,
1:25.9	The Rational Optimist, How Prosperity Evolves. You may have
1:29.2	read his more recent book, The Evolution of Everything. If you follow British Parliament, you may
1:34.1	know him as a member of the House of Lords. But in this context today, I'm having a conversation
1:39.1	with him as the author of the new book, How Innovation Works, Why It Flourishes in Freedom. And the conversation
1:46.0	is really about the way in which innovation has been treated historically as some emergent
1:51.6	phenomenon that just happens, rather than as something that can be understood and cultivated in
1:56.7	explicit ways. And Matt spent a huge amount of time in this book digging into figuring out how
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