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today. you

1:24

you know. Hey

1:28

Ted TED listeners. Today Today, we have

1:30

one of our favorite episodes

1:33

of this year from another podcast

1:35

from the TED Audio Collective.

1:37

It's called Rethinking and and it's hosted

1:39

by Adam Grant. Organizational psychologist Adam

1:41

Grant is one of of

1:43

most beloved speakers and on

1:45

on his podcast Rethinking he talks talks

1:47

to some of the world's most

1:49

renowned scientists, entrepreneurs, and

1:51

creatives. In In this episode, he

1:54

he has a thoughtful

1:56

conversation with inventor Nathan Meerbold, about

2:52

You Folks were were

2:54

back in the bottom of the six

2:56

on the mound, his his sliders wait, wait

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is that a cat on the the fields?

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That really moving. moving. He's past

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second base. and Coach Bakerfield's

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making a grab, and

3:07

Oh, you missed. he missed.

3:09

Someone give that cat a contract. But

3:11

contract this folks even this

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incredible cat can't sign

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up for pet pet insurance but

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you can your your pet

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now at lemonade.com/incredible I

3:52

love intellectual arbitrage where you find solutions

3:54

someone has over here that could apply

3:56

to a different area. for you. Hey,

3:59

everyone. It's Adam Grant. Welcome back to

4:01

Rethinking. My podcast on the Science of

4:03

What Makes us Tic with the TED

4:05

Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist, and

4:07

I'm taking you inside the minds of

4:10

fascinating people to explore new thoughts and

4:12

new ways of thinking. My guest today

4:14

is Nathan Meervold. He's something of a

4:16

modern Renaissance man. He earned a PhD

4:18

in Applied Math. Did a postdoc with

4:21

Stephen Hawking. and became Microsoft's first chief

4:23

technology officer. He's the co-founder of intellectual

4:25

ventures, a company that develops and acquires

4:27

patents, and he loves to invent solutions

4:29

to problems. When we recruit other scientists,

4:32

I always like to say, I need

4:34

to find someone who's crazy enough to

4:36

think it's possible, but not so crazy

4:38

as to think they already did it.

4:40

Nathan has also moonlighted as a dinosaur

4:43

hunter. Yep, his team has discovered a

4:45

record number of T-Rex skeletons. He's published

4:47

peer-reviewed research in fields ranging from paleobiology

4:49

to astronomy to climate science. And in

4:51

his spare time, he's an award-winning nature

4:54

photographer and chef. He's won a James

4:56

Beard Cookbook of the Year Award and

4:58

been a guest judge on Top Chef.

5:00

Today, he's going to challenge you to

5:02

rethink some of your creative processes. I'd

5:05

love to kick off by asking you,

5:07

when did you know that you wanted

5:09

to become an inventor? Well, probably my

5:11

whole life. My mom says that when

5:13

I was two, I told her I

5:16

was going to be a scientist. What

5:18

were you tinkering with in childhood? Oh,

5:20

I took lots of things apart and

5:22

put them back together again. The dreaded

5:24

thing is when you had spare parts

5:27

at the end. And you think, hmm,

5:29

were those really necessary or not? When

5:31

I was a kid, an old TV

5:33

meant it had tubes in it. And

5:35

the tubes are really cool because they

5:38

would glow when they were running. And,

5:40

of course, there's also super high voltage

5:42

in there. And so I kind of

5:44

knew that if I screwed up, it

5:46

could end badly, but fortunately it didn't.

5:49

But later I took my mom's car

5:51

apart and put it back together. rebuild

5:53

the engine. Of course

5:55

course these days need

5:57

don't need to take

6:00

something apart in to

6:02

know how it the internet

6:04

will tell you. will

6:07

tell you. And if was a kid today that's

6:09

probably what I would do. do. In In

6:11

fact I do do that a lot that a

6:13

lot that you can you can look up the Given that you

6:15

can now, is the a so quickly now, magic

6:17

is it a little bit like a magic

6:19

trick that's been ruined tells somebody tells you

6:21

the secret as opposed to figuring it

6:23

out for yourself? for yourself? On one hand,

6:25

I would tend to say to yes. that

6:27

it's cooler and maybe more instructive to

6:29

do it yourself, do but at the

6:32

same time, I know that that is I

6:34

know that that of a meme that has

6:36

run through has run human culture forever,

6:38

which is, is, yeah, those those newfangled

6:40

kids don't have it as good

6:42

as I did. I did in

6:44

my my day, Sunny. let me tell you.

6:46

We we had to take our

6:48

tube apart with our bare hands.

6:50

And the And the fact is

6:53

that each generation winds up overcoming

6:55

the supposed things that aren't

6:57

as good. The most interesting

6:59

inventions are those that haven't worked

7:01

yet. But of course that's also

7:03

part of the deal, is that

7:05

inventing something that that is obvious that can

7:07

work is different than trying

7:09

to make something work never ever

7:11

worked before. before. And both are

7:14

are important. fact, the incremental inventions

7:16

that improve things a little bit a

7:18

a little bit and a little

7:20

bit, those incremental ones are way

7:22

more numerous, are but but

7:25

they're hugely important. but

7:27

then every now and then you have really

7:29

big breakthrough have really big those too. and you love to

7:31

talk about how you get to

7:33

those breakthroughs. Your invention sessions are

7:35

legendary. sessions are Talk to me about how

7:37

those work. how those work. I've a whole host of questions

7:39

about them, but the but the... The to start

7:42

for me as an organizational psychologist is, how

7:44

do you decide who's in the room in

7:46

the first place? who's in the to

7:48

get people who You want to something

7:50

about the problem. the problem

7:52

at so ideally someone who has some experience

7:54

with it. with it. too

7:56

much experience of the problem. the problem

7:59

helpful. helpful. Those people tend to

8:01

be Debbie Downer when it comes

8:03

to new ideas. Not always, not

8:05

always, but you have to watch

8:07

out that you don't fall into

8:09

the, well we tried all that

8:11

and it's impossible, mode of thinking.

8:13

Then it helps to have some

8:15

people who have a lot of

8:17

deep experience in other parts of

8:19

technology that might be useful. So

8:21

there's a ton of different inventions

8:23

in our modern life that are

8:25

some combination. of physical things and

8:28

software things. And it's hard to

8:30

invent such a thing if you

8:32

don't have a good understanding of

8:34

both in the room. But mostly

8:36

what you want are people who

8:38

are inventive, people who are willing

8:40

to think outside the box, people

8:42

who are willing to say stuff

8:44

that might seem crazy at first.

8:46

Then you have to be careful

8:48

that you don't let other people

8:50

censure them too much. Now, I

8:52

say too much because of course

8:54

an idea that completely fails. You

8:56

don't want to spend lots of

8:58

time trying to beat a dead

9:00

horse. But at the same time,

9:02

if you are too negative, too

9:05

early, then just as a social

9:07

construct, it helps prevent people from

9:09

coming up with a new idea.

9:11

People can invent things that they

9:13

don't know that much about. That

9:15

sounds counterintuitive. Very much so. Tell

9:17

me more. But a phenomena that

9:19

happens quite often is someone will

9:21

say, oh, why don't we think

9:23

about it like this? And that

9:25

may not be right, but it's

9:27

different enough that somebody else says,

9:29

oh, well, that's cool, but how

9:31

about like that? And then somebody

9:33

else says, oh, but that's very

9:35

much like this problem over here

9:37

that people already know how to

9:39

solve. And so you get, it's

9:42

sort of like a puzzle. You

9:44

don't have all the puzzle pieces.

9:46

in any one person's hand. If

9:48

they start, if you start showing

9:50

your puzzle pieces. and say, oh

9:52

look, I've got a piece that

9:54

fits with that, I've got a

9:56

piece with this, and you put

9:58

them together and you've got something,

10:00

it's pretty cool. I think, it

10:02

sounds like you're trying to solve

10:04

a few problems. The first one

10:06

is you're avoiding cognitive entrenchment, where

10:08

people start to take for granted

10:10

assumptions that need to be questioned

10:12

because they've just been too steeped

10:14

in the old way of doing

10:16

things. But in a collaborative environment,

10:18

a little bit of criticism can

10:21

actually stimulate creativity because it raises

10:23

the bar. And people don't feel

10:25

like they're being attacked personally. They

10:27

actually feel like somebody is trying

10:29

to help them rule out bad

10:31

ideas so they can get to

10:33

the good ones. If you ran

10:35

a track team by having... a

10:37

bear chase the runners, it might

10:39

be effective, but it also might

10:41

be scary and off-putting and people

10:43

would quit the track team. If

10:45

you have some competition between the

10:47

runners, that's a much more mild

10:49

form of stimulus than the bear

10:51

chasing them. I think there's often

10:53

a trade-off on the strong tie,

10:55

weak tie dimension. We know that

10:58

people know each other well, let

11:00

their ideas fly much more freely,

11:02

but they also tend to carry

11:04

a lot of redundant knowledge. And

11:06

weak or ties are kind of

11:08

the opposite. They open up fresh

11:10

perspectives, but it's hard for people

11:12

to be candid and take risks

11:14

in those environments. So how do

11:16

you deal with those dynamics? If

11:18

you have a couple people can

11:20

rip off of each other. then

11:22

the new person is more likely

11:24

to be able to chime in

11:26

and say, oh, why don't we

11:28

try this? Because they see it's

11:30

okay. They see it's okay to

11:32

not be successful in every thing.

11:35

They get encouraged, like someone mumbles

11:37

something. You say, what was that?

11:39

And you got to draw them

11:41

out of it. And so it's

11:43

one of these things where, well,

11:45

much like being an interviewer. What's

11:47

the right way to be an

11:49

interviewer? Well, there's lots of rules

11:51

you can put down, but ultimately

11:53

it's a case-by-case situation. And if

11:55

you're doing an interview with multiple

11:57

people simultaneously, it's easy. Even more

11:59

case by case because the interpersonal

12:01

dynamics comes up. On one hand,

12:03

you can't schedule success. You can't

12:05

say, Adam, we're going to get

12:07

together this afternoon for two and

12:09

a half hours and solve this

12:12

problem. Or we will make at

12:14

least a stage three milestone towards

12:16

that problem. It doesn't work that

12:18

way. On the other hand, if

12:20

you do push at something enough,

12:22

you have a reasonable chance of

12:24

finding something. Now, it isn't always

12:26

the thing you set out to

12:28

do. You have to decide what

12:30

is your goal? Is your goal

12:32

to create new inventions? Even if

12:34

there's somewhat coloring outside the lines

12:36

and not the problem you were

12:38

talking about? Or is it you

12:40

have to solve this one problem?

12:42

There's a difference in invention and

12:44

research. Research can involve invention and

12:46

often does, but it's also very

12:48

common that a researcher will work

12:51

on one problem for 20 years.

12:53

and they're beating their head against

12:55

the wall and maybe they get

12:57

it in the 21st year or

12:59

maybe they don't. Well that's about

13:01

a problem-centric view. They have so

13:03

much commitment to the problem that

13:05

they will continue beating their head

13:07

against the wall because it's so

13:09

important to solve that problem. Whereas

13:11

in an invention session we'd say,

13:13

look, don't keep beating your head

13:15

against the wall. Yeah, give the

13:17

wall a couple good hard cracks

13:19

with your head with your head.

13:21

And then moved a softer spot

13:23

of the wall because our experience

13:25

is there's always a softer spot

13:28

of the wall. That's such a

13:30

great way to frame it. There's

13:32

always a softer spot on the

13:34

wall. I'm reminded of some evidence

13:36

that roughly half of all patents

13:38

come from spontaneous discoveries. Yeah. As

13:40

much as you might want to

13:42

find the solution by just staring

13:44

at the problem and applying a

13:46

structure, sometimes it's the unexpected moment

13:48

that leads to a leap of

13:50

discovery or invention. And I think

13:52

it's tricky to stay open to

13:54

those though. when you've

13:56

got a problem

13:58

that you're really

14:00

committed to solving. committed

14:03

to why That's why sessions,

14:05

we only have a a

14:07

commitment to our initial idea. idea.

14:10

variety of There's a variety of things

14:12

you can do with problems you

14:14

haven't solved yet. yet. But you only you

14:16

only focus on the things that are

14:18

going to be really tough. Engineering is

14:20

be really tough. than is also If

14:22

than research an way. you're at an

14:24

airplane company a new new airplane, that's that's

14:26

what you wanna do is make a

14:28

new airplane. a new airplane. Now it happens,

14:30

people trying to make a new

14:32

airplane a new up with all kinds of

14:34

kinds really cool cool example

14:37

is in computer graphics. computer

14:39

a type of curve that's

14:41

used to model surfaces model and

14:44

it's widely used, and it's called a

14:46

used. And it's called engineers and

14:48

scientists at Boeing that

14:50

were looking for we're looking

14:53

model to model airplane shapes.

14:55

And this really cool set of

14:57

curves. it turns out it's not

14:59

just airplane not you can model

15:02

all kinds of things that way.

15:04

every 3D way, program that does realistic

15:06

looking surfaces uses beep splines. uses

15:09

beep that was a

15:11

happy accident of trying

15:13

to make It reminds me It

15:15

reminds me also of a case

15:17

where some digital imaging technology

15:19

that was invented for the Hubble

15:21

Space Telescope ended up revolutionizing

15:23

breast cancer. That's a good example

15:25

of something I call of arbitrage.

15:27

idea In financial markets, arbitrage

15:29

is where you discover, oh, the

15:31

price of wool is this

15:33

amount in New Zealand, and it's

15:36

a different amount in New

15:38

York. different amount in buy wool buy place,

15:40

sell it the other place, the

15:42

and and bridge this gap in technology

15:44

and intellectual intellectual

15:46

pursuits, there's almost

15:48

always arbitrage opportunities. The The problem

15:51

with the Hubble Space Telescope was

15:53

that the mirror was made badly. And there's

15:55

a whole And there's a whole story about

15:57

why that happened. But then well, well, is there

15:59

a way we can - - salvage the images and

16:01

so they came up with all

16:03

these very clever algorithms using a

16:06

little deconvolution to correct for the

16:08

shitty mirror on the original Hubble.

16:10

Well then of course someone it

16:12

percolates through the system and someone

16:15

is saying gee I want to

16:17

sharpen these x-ray images they're not

16:19

as good as they could be.

16:21

Hey let's try this thing and

16:23

it's this huge benefit. NASA by

16:26

the way has had... tremendous amounts

16:28

of that in its history. The

16:30

Apollo Space Program and other programs

16:32

invented lots of stuff that was

16:34

hugely useful elsewhere. So you could

16:37

argue that the societal benefit, for

16:39

example, sending men to the moon,

16:41

it wasn't just getting people on

16:43

the moon. It was this incredible

16:46

amount of technology that was invented

16:48

that then was very material in

16:50

the United States and other parts

16:52

of the Western world becoming leaders

16:54

in electronics and various kinds of

16:57

software and other things. So it

16:59

was hugely useful for an accidental

17:01

reason. I encounter a lot of

17:03

people who live in fear that

17:06

someone else is going to steal

17:08

their idea. And my reaction to

17:10

that is... No, exactly. You don't

17:12

realize that creativity is abundant. It's

17:14

actually execution that's scarce. And I'd

17:17

love to hear you riff on

17:19

that theme a little bit. Oh,

17:21

it's totally the case. So when

17:23

we would recruit new inventors, they'd

17:26

always say, well, who's going to

17:28

take my idea? You're going to

17:30

take my idea. I said, well,

17:32

if you're only going to have

17:34

one good idea, you're going to

17:37

have one good idea. You're right.

17:39

And if that next idea is

17:41

going to give you the next

17:43

trillion dollar company, oh yeah, you

17:45

should always keep that one, just

17:48

go for it. I'll be able

17:50

to say I knew you win.

17:52

But if you're the kind of

17:54

person we really want an invention

17:57

session, you have tons of ideas

17:59

every day and you have more

18:01

than you could possibly do anything

18:03

with. Execution is perhaps the narrowest

18:05

part of the funnel down at

18:08

the bottom, but there's a whole...

18:10

funnel of how do you develop

18:12

these ideas, how do you carry

18:14

them forward and hone them, and

18:17

that all is part of getting

18:19

the stuff to work. Let me

18:21

see if we can run to

18:23

a lightning round. You're ready for

18:25

some rapid fire questions? I'll try.

18:28

All right, what is the worst

18:30

advice you've ever gotten? Life? rewards

18:32

you for specializing in something and

18:34

I've never been able to stop

18:37

being interested in many things. So

18:39

it's actually good advice. I've just

18:41

never been able to handle it.

18:43

What is an unpopular opinion? You're

18:45

happy to defend. We made the

18:48

world closer together by flying around

18:50

a lot. We were just waiting

18:52

for there to be some germ

18:54

to take advantage of it. And

18:56

I wrote these long memos and

18:59

reports about that and say, oh,

19:01

there's going to be a real

19:03

problem, there'll be a natural pandemic,

19:05

there'll be bioterrorism, there'll be something

19:08

else, it'll be horrible. It was

19:10

completely predictable, but the world did

19:12

nothing about it. Let's go to

19:14

a more optimistic prediction then, which

19:16

is, if you could take a

19:19

time machine 50 years to the

19:21

future, what do you think is

19:23

going to be the biggest surprise

19:25

or most exciting breakthrough? That's almost

19:28

impossible by definition, of course, because

19:30

if I expect it then it

19:32

can't really be much of a

19:34

surprise, can it? Surprise to the

19:36

rest of us, but clear to

19:39

you, how about that? Oh, evidence

19:41

of extraterrestrial intelligence would be a

19:43

super cool one. It might cause

19:45

humans to stick together a little

19:48

bit more to know that we're

19:50

not alone. Because humans are so

19:52

good at doing that us-them thing.

19:54

And it'd be great if it

19:56

was us for them, but they

19:59

were too far away to actually

20:01

worry about. And a more practical...

20:03

level, everything except accidental death ought

20:05

to be solved in 50 years.

20:07

That would be exciting. If we

20:10

solved things other than accidental death,

20:12

we'd still have a expected lifetime

20:14

about 300 years because there's enough

20:16

accidents. It's like, oh God, that

20:19

kid, that Adam, it's such a

20:21

shame he was a kid, he

20:23

was only 103! When he died

20:25

in that, when a bus hit

20:27

him, we got to stop this

20:30

bullshit. And of course, if that's

20:32

true, I don't need a time

20:34

machine, if that happens, I don't

20:36

need a time machine to know

20:39

what happens 50 years from now.

20:41

Fair enough. All right, Nathan, you

20:43

were talking about physics, I have

20:45

to ask you. How did working

20:47

with Stephen Hawking change you? Well,

20:50

I think two things really stuck

20:52

with me a lot. One was

20:54

his tremendous support for the people

20:56

that worked with him. There was

20:59

a... invitation-only conference that Stephen was

21:01

invited to, and it was only

21:03

for the head of each research

21:05

group. It was a very small

21:07

group. And Stephen wanted to send

21:10

one of his students, because that

21:12

student's thesis was on exactly this.

21:14

And the organizers said, no, I'm

21:16

sorry, you can only send one

21:18

person from your group. So Stephen

21:21

sent the student with a note

21:23

saying, I'm sorry you didn't have

21:25

room for me. Of course, the

21:27

idea you would jump rank and

21:30

send this kid in your stead

21:32

was shocking to everyone. But what

21:34

could they do? But the other

21:36

thing, and the main thing about

21:38

Stephen is, here's a guy with

21:41

his insane amounts of physical challenges.

21:43

And yet he had a great

21:45

upbeat attitude. He loved to tell

21:47

jokes. The jokes were frustrating to

21:50

the point of being almost painful,

21:52

but he still did it. Because

21:54

in the era I was with

21:56

him, he didn't have his speech

21:58

synthesizer yet. So... He He would. and

22:01

the talking the talking really wouldn't sound

22:03

like human speech. You had to listen

22:05

extremely carefully and then you also had to

22:07

guess what the words were going to

22:09

be. you also had would repeat the punch were going to

22:11

be. So know repeat the times

22:13

five the tension it was

22:16

just going to

22:18

be unbearable But he

22:20

would He would just soldier

22:22

on finally we'd get it and of course we'd

22:24

all burst out laughing. all burst out laughing. If a

22:26

a guy do do that sort of a sort of

22:28

a situation, what the hell right do

22:30

I have to feel sorry for myself?

22:33

an You're an endlessly curious person. a

22:35

What's the question you have for me as

22:37

a psychologist? Well, the rude

22:39

question, but it's one I think about think

22:41

about a lot is, of does the

22:43

science of creativity actually help people

22:46

to be more creative? is it Or is

22:48

it more about a study into

22:50

itself? No, I don't mean it to

22:52

sound quite as rude as it

22:54

sounds. it sounds. I don't find it it rude.

22:56

Comparative literature is a academic field. field, and

22:58

And it's not obvious it has any

23:00

impact on how people write books. You

23:02

have people that are creating literature. that are and

23:04

you have people that are studying and you have

23:06

people that are studying it,

23:09

and they rarely it often doesn't go

23:11

well when they do go could

23:13

they do. You could room with books

23:15

on brainstorming and creative idea

23:17

generation and so forth. and

23:20

so forth. And I've tried to

23:22

read some of those, those. and some of

23:24

them I may taken on board in some board

23:26

way, but anyway, way, but I don't

23:28

think it's a rude question at all. I think

23:30

I don't think it's a rude question at all.

23:32

I all. think it's, that I mean, it's the kind

23:34

of question that I care a lot about

23:36

as a social scientist, wanting to know, knowledge knowledge

23:38

we're generating actually help anyone? anyone? And the the answer

23:40

may well be I I think in this case it's

23:42

qualified yes. I I that I found the the science of creativity

23:44

useful in three ways. One is One is it

23:46

helps people rule out things that are are So

23:49

we know, for example, that

23:51

large group brainstorming sessions produce

23:53

fewer ideas than smaller groups.

23:55

smaller that begin with independent thought. That's

23:58

an easy one. Yep. an easy one. Yep. The

24:00

second thing it does is it

24:02

sometimes helps people avoid becoming their

24:04

own worst enemies. So we know,

24:06

for example, when people run out

24:08

of ideas, they tend to stop.

24:11

But if you give them a

24:13

little nudge and say, actually, your

24:15

first ideas are rarely your best

24:17

ideas, why don't you spend another

24:19

20 minutes on this? Then they

24:21

start to go on more random

24:24

walks, and that's useful. And then

24:26

I think the third thing is

24:28

that I think that the science

24:30

of creativity probably teaches us a

24:32

little bit about what kinds of

24:35

creative collisions are most likely to

24:37

yield fruit. So we know, for

24:39

example, that if people have a

24:41

mix of shared and unshared experiences,

24:43

if you have some people that

24:45

you know really well and other

24:48

people you don't know well, then

24:50

you get that nice balance of

24:52

creating a common language, but also

24:54

bringing in some fresh ideas. And

24:56

so I think about those ideas

24:59

as pretty useful, but they might

25:01

be more helpful for kind of

25:03

incremental innovation than major breakthroughs. But

25:05

incremental innovation is super important. I

25:07

think so too, but I'm biased.

25:09

So let's talk about... Before we

25:12

wrap, I want to ask you

25:14

about your comment about breadth and

25:16

depth, because I think on the

25:18

one hand, it sounded like self-criticism.

25:20

On the other hand, you might

25:23

be the closest thing we have

25:25

to a modern day Renaissance man.

25:27

Yes, some people born before your

25:29

time, you're telling me it was

25:31

more than 500 years too late.

25:33

Too late. You missed your window,

25:36

Nathan. You're stuck improving windows and

25:38

hunting for dinosaurs when you could

25:40

have been painting the Mona Lisa.

25:42

Well, so... As I say, the

25:44

world rewards specialization, the more specialized

25:47

you become, often the better you

25:49

can become at an area, and

25:51

the more likely you are to

25:53

get lots of societal rewards, income,

25:55

all sorts of other things. It's

25:57

true that it's hard for me

26:00

to focus on just one thing.

26:02

I'm not scatter-brained or have ADHD

26:04

in the conventional sense. I can

26:06

go very deep in things. But

26:08

I... I find lots of things

26:11

interesting and I'm always very curious.

26:13

And that's actually one of the

26:15

great things that the internet for

26:17

me is when I was a

26:19

kid, if I was curious about

26:21

how does this work, it was

26:24

a lot harder. The threshold of

26:26

being curious enough to go find

26:28

out was very high. And now

26:30

the threshold is much, much lower.

26:32

This is what works for me.

26:34

I found ways to make it

26:37

actually a little bit of an

26:39

advantage. I can even tell you,

26:41

oh, that's the secret at all

26:43

of this. But to go back

26:45

to Stephen, I want to have

26:48

a serious conversation with him about

26:50

his disability and this condition he

26:52

had, ALS. And he said, oh,

26:54

it's actually an advantage. I said,

26:56

Stephen, look, it's a great thing

26:58

to say. But like we're alone

27:01

here and he said no, no,

27:03

no, it's like obviously his life

27:05

would have been different if he

27:07

didn't have it But given he

27:09

has it he saw it as

27:12

an advantage Because he said they

27:14

don't make me go in committees

27:16

They don't make me do all

27:18

this bullshit. I'd have to do

27:20

otherwise He said when it came

27:22

to an idea He was forced

27:25

to always simplify it because he

27:27

couldn't if he had a a

27:29

pencil and paper, he could keep

27:31

10 things in his mind at

27:33

one time, but doing it all

27:36

in his head, and with people

27:38

writing some stuff down and so

27:40

forth, but still, he had to

27:42

focus on a smaller number of

27:44

things. Well, who am I to

27:46

edit Stephen Hawking, but I don't

27:49

know if I'd entirely by the

27:51

case that this disability was an

27:53

advantage, but I think there's a

27:55

profound point there that every disadvantage

27:57

has advantages. Well, and you find

28:00

that with people, for example, who

28:02

are dyslexic, who they think in

28:04

a different way than people who

28:06

aren't dyslexic. particularly when it comes

28:08

to text and linear thoughts, so

28:10

they have to think nonlinearly, and

28:13

yet they can be incredibly successful.

28:15

Although the school system and lots

28:17

of other aspects of ordinary life

28:19

penalize them heavily, which is unfortunate.

28:21

That's an example of the world.

28:24

missing a resource that could be

28:26

great for all of us. Other

28:28

people that are not neurotypical, people

28:30

that are on the spectrum as

28:32

they say, also have a tremendous

28:34

amount to offer, or can have

28:37

a tremendous amount to offer, but

28:39

because they have unusual ways of

28:41

interaction, it's hard to work with

28:43

them. And so we tend to

28:45

underutilize that intellectual resource. That's a

28:48

tragedy. Now, it's a tragedy that

28:50

has a hopeful element because over

28:52

time, we've also managed to stop

28:54

being quite so prejudiced against a

28:56

whole set of other folks that

28:58

we also used to marginalize and

29:01

not gain the full fruit of

29:03

their intellectual efforts. So hopefully this

29:05

will continue. I certainly hope it

29:07

does. Well, Nathan, I think we

29:09

are at time, so I'll wrap

29:12

us here, but this was... Utterly

29:14

delightful, and I look forward to

29:16

the next one. Okay, great. Thanks,

29:18

Adam. Nathan underscores that people who

29:20

live in fear of others stealing

29:22

their ideas generally don't have that

29:25

many good ideas. Ideas are a

29:27

dime a dozen. The real barrier

29:29

to innovation is people figuring out

29:31

how to make their visions a

29:33

reality. What prevails is rarely the

29:36

best idea. It's usually the best

29:38

implementation. Rethinking

29:41

is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The

29:43

show is part of the TED audio

29:45

collective. And this episode was produced and

29:47

mixed by Cosmic Standard. Our producers are

29:50

Hannah Kingsley Ma and Asia Simpson. Our

29:52

editor is Alejandro Salazar. Our fact checkers

29:54

Paul Durbin. Original music by Hansdale Sue

29:57

and Allison Layton Brown. Our team includes

29:59

Eliza. Smith, Jacob Winnick, Samiah Adams,

30:01

Roxanne Hylash, Banban Chang, Julia

30:03

Dickerson, and Whitney

30:06

Pennington Rogers. Rogers. You

30:08

know, if someone is so shy about

30:10

You know, if someone is so shy

30:12

about expressing their ideas. in front of they

30:14

can't be drawn out in front

30:16

of other people unless they know them

30:18

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