How to Get Unstuck — With Adam Alter

Finding and Improving upon Others' Work

Key takeaways:

• The speaker doesn't consider themselves to be original, but rather someone who finds and references other people's work.
• Incrementally improving upon existing work can be highly valuable.
• Truly original breakthroughs may be ahead of their time and difficult to commercialize.

Transcript: Speaker 2 So I think recombination is a better way to go than radical originality.

Speaker 1 I mean, I remember our colleague, Peter Golder, who was at NYU and is now a Dartmouth is devoted his entire research effort to proving and he's right. Did the original player, whether it's a GUI or mobile phone or search is never the one that captures all the stakeholder value. It's the person that comes in and improves on it. When I get accused of doing something original, I'm like, no, I find other people's work. I put a different spin on it. I apply to a different medium. I maybe say to more provocative human terms. I don't think of myself as original at all. I think of someone who wants to find other people's work and I reference them and I credit them. I don't plagiarize it, but I mean, this is amazing work. And if you can bring to bear something that's fantastic but incrementally improve upon it. And that's where the sauce is because the truly original breakthroughs and thinking is super important, but it generally doesn't create a lot of value because it's by virtue of it being truly original breakthrough. It's a little bit ahead of its time and hard to commercialize.

Recombination of Ideas for Innovation

Key takeaways:

• The speaker has been collecting ideas for the past 20 years in a document, resulting in thousands of ideas.
• The speaker suggests combining ideas that haven't been done before as a way to generate new business opportunities or creative concepts.
• Recombination of ideas is considered a better approach than radical originality according to the speaker.
• A colleague named Peter Golder has focused his research on proving the effectiveness of recombination.

Episode AI notes

1. The podcast episode discusses the concept of recombination of ideas for innovation. The speaker, Adam Alter, shares that he has been collecting ideas for the past 20 years, resulting in thousands of ideas. He suggests combining ideas that haven't been done before as a way to generate new business opportunities or creative concepts.

2. The speaker highlights the effectiveness of recombination of ideas as a better approach than radical originality. He explains that by randomly combining collected ideas, he has been able to generate new and innovative concepts, leading to numerous business opportunities, book ideas, and inventions.

3. One important point mentioned is that the speaker's colleague, Peter Golder, has conducted research to prove the effectiveness of recombination. This adds credibility to the concept and further supports the speaker's argument.

4. These key takeaways emphasize the value of collecting and combining ideas to spark innovation and creativity. By recombining existing ideas in new and unique ways, individuals can uncover new opportunities and make breakthroughs.

5. Overall, the podcast episode provides insights into the power of recombining ideas for innovation and encourages listeners to explore this approach in their own pursuits.