WEBVTT - 47: Why it's Time to Stop Using the Word 'Disruption' 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.320 But knowledge to work and grow your business with c 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.680 i T from transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.520 T offers commercial lending, leasing, and treasury management services for 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.480 small and middle market businesses. Learn more at c i 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:24.919 T dot com put Knowledge to Work. Hello and welcome 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.600 to another edition of The Odd LODs podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthal, 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.479 Managing editor of Bloomberg Markets, and I'm Tracy Alloway, Executive 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:37.160 editor of Bloomberg Markets. Hey, Tracy, how's gone pretty good? 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.720 I think get kind of nervous when you ask me 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:41.680 stuff like that. Oh yeah, I just thought, you know, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:43.760 it's been a while. I wasn't on last week, so 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.479 I wanted to catch up. That's true. That's true. You 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.479 were away. You missed Matt Levin and Space Robots, So 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.360 I'm sorry a little worried um that he did better 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:54.760 than me. So I'm kind of I'm trying. I haven't 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:56.160 listened to it yet because I don't want to see 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.080 if he's better than me, you have to stuff it 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:03.200 up today. So Space Robot, So technology is pretty cool. Huh. Yeah, 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.800 it's impressive and it seems to make a lot of people, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:12.840 potentially a lot of money. So, speaking of technology and 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:14.680 making a lot of money. You know, another cool thing 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.040 you can do with technology is I feel like this 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.800 is a trick go on. You can you can catch 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.959 up with old friends that you haven't seen in twenty 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:28.600 years on Facebook. No way. And actually our guest today 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.400 is someone who I don't think I've seen probably in 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.679 like twenty two or twenty three years. He's an old 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:42.040 middle school friend of mine from when I lived in Juliet, Illinois, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.560 who which is a kind of a suburb of Chicago. 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.440 Is is this what odd thoughts has been reduced to? 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.120 You're just bringing on your your school friends. It is, 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.400 but there's also it is so part of it is 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.480 just an excuse to catch up with an old friend, 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.760 but we're also going to be talking about there's also 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.920 a relevant angle related to technology g because our guest 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.840 is a historian of technology at the Stevens Institute of 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:10.799 Technology in New Jersey, and he recently gave a great 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.040 speech called the Innovation Fetish, which is about why it's 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.560 so bad that we're obsessed with words like disruption and 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:24.000 innovation and why it's so perverse that we can't stop 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.959 talking in this sort of nonsense language that we've all 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.160 constructed and come to accept. So those are words that 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.919 we see on almost every technology press release that comes 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.519 our way, right, We we read them and see them unquestionably, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.200 like no one ever talks about why are we talking 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.120 about innovation so much? And are we really getting anywhere 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.520 by hammering home the importance of innovation and disruption and 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.200 entrepreneurship and all these things that we've just sort of 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:58.560 taken for granted are good and maybe there's a dark 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:04.280 side to our endless Uh focus on this language of technology? Oh? 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.480 I like this. I like where this is going. All right, 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.280 you might be forgiven for bringing your friends on. Wasn't 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:14.000 totally contrived? So with us is Leavin Soul. He's a professor, 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.520 as I mentioned, at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Leah, 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:19.640 it's great to see you and thanks for joining us. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.519 Thanks for having me here. Uh So your talk uh 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.880 the innovation fetish and your work focused on all these 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.400 all these buzzwords that we just mentioned. So tell us 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.639 about your work and why is it important to focus 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.520 on the language, Uh, focus on these words? Right. So 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.680 I'm a historian of technology. My first book I just 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.720 wrote is on the history of auto regulation in the 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.640 United States. But for this project, what I've been looking 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.600 at is tracking word usage over time, and one surprising 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:57.720 fact you find is that the term technological innovation only 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:02.360 comes into use in about the ninth sixties, which, ironically, 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.840 if you read economists and economic historians like Robert Gordon, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:12.240 is about the time that really deep and meaningful technological innovation, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.040 revolutionary innovation kind of came to an end in the 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.680 United States, right because we kind of hit the skids 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.120 in nineteen seventy and since then, with a couple of 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.200 brief exceptions, we have not gotten back to really deep 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.880 innovation and really meaningful economic growth immediately. So that's very 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.960 interesting and I want to talk about that. But the 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:38.279 first response that I think most people think is like, 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.400 how can you say that we haven't seen much innovation 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:43.719 since the sixties and seventies. I mean, our world is 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.760 wildly different, largely thanks to information technology computers and phones 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.080 and the Internet and all this. So this seems to 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.279 be a contestable point right off the bat, that that 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.840 was actually the high water mark for UH innovation as 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.960 opposed to what many people would see is the very 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.599 the founding era of digital technologies and the Internet and 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:09.280 all these things, right, So how do you back up 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.920 that claim that that was sort of the peak? Right? 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.040 I mean, I think that the argument Gordon would make 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.200 is that we see a period from about ninety four 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.599 to two thousand four where businesses are adopting email and 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.480 different internet technologies, and we see that in the economic 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.279 growth numbers, but we just don't. For all of the 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.840 hype about innovation and disruption all these things, we actually 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.320 don't see that in our economic growth. So in the 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:42.360 nineteen sixties, did people suddenly start talking about technological innovation 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.840 or was it a gradual change or how did it 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.520 come about and why? So the way it happened was 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:53.599 that economists, especially Robert Solo by the late nineteen fifties, 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.760 they they sort of had very good economic statistics and 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:02.200 they were realizing that tradition all explanations like changes in 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:08.120 capital and labor just weren't explaining the economic growth. So 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:13.039 then they hypothesized that that hidden thing was technological change. 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.680 So then amongst the economists and economic historians in the 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.640 sixties and seventies, you see in policymakers too, you see 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:24.000 more and more focus on innovation as something that we 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.039 should try to foster and encourage. So what's wrong with that? 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.880 Because intuitively, it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:37.440 policies that promote science and promote the application of science 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.240 to business models, um and the promotion of technologies that 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:46.640 will make us more efficient. So what is the downside 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:51.479 to uh this rhetoric? I think there's two major downsides. 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.880 The first is that it's not clear that these policies 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.360 or changes in our institutions are actually getting us that 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.040 innovation right, So we can talk about it a lot, 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.039 but is it actually producing it? And the second part 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.240 is that this focus on innovation often leads us to 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:15.080 just ignore fundamentals like infrastructure and ordinary labor, because even 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.880 in a very innovative society, most people's labor is going 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:23.760 into things like just keeping the world going. So is 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:29.240 the implication here that because technological innovation sounds like a 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.360 sexier kind of topic, that that's why people tend to 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.840 focus on it more when it comes to economic growth. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.440 Is that what we're saying? Yeah, I mean that's a 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:42.000 big part of it. It taps into a much longer history, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.520 which is a kind of fetish around invention. There's cults 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.200 of invention going all the way back to Edison and 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:53.080 Tesla and people like this. But since nineteen seventy or 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.000 nineteen eighty, there really has been this kind of constant 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.880 focus on the sexy topic of innovation to the nicole 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:05.000 act of many other basic fundamental issues, even basic technological issues. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.840 Is innovation good and should Let's say there were a 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:14.480 better way to achieve innovation besides talking about innovation in 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.280 your view? Is that worth pursuing? Is the issue? What 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.400 I'm trying to get at, is the issue with the 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:26.320 language itself counterproductive? Or is there something more fundamental? Could 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.600 we achieve have higher rates of productivity and innovation by 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.440 thinking about it in some different way? Right? I think 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.600 that there are smarter ways to do innovation policy, and 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.840 I think that in general, innovation is often good. So 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:41.960 if we can find those ways to do those things, 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.120 we should. But the second part then, is that there's 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.320 a lot of things that we neglect when we just 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:51.760 focus on innovation. And why is it zero sum? So 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.760 walk us through how policy makers. You know, every state 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.920 wants to be have its own silicon valley and sort 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.640 of incubator programs for new startups, But why does that 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.240 have to be zero sum. Why does the focus on 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:12.240 all these things necessarily detract from the labor of most people. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.119 Would you say, maintain maintain the infrastructure, a building infrastructure? 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:17.680 Why does it have to be one or the other. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.679 Let me give you an example. So Senator uh Sam 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:27.679 brown Back in Kansas followed traditional conservative economic thinking and 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.640 cutting taxes for the wealthy um in an attempt to 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.360 induce innovation in the state. Now, maybe we've seen some 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.120 job growth and innovation, but what he's ended up doing 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.480 is cutting the tax base, and for that reason, he's 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.120 had to continually tip go into the transportation fund, which 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.080 means that kind of Kansas roads are falling apart. That 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.920 would be one example. Doesn't this just speak to the 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:59.560 fact that technology is often something that's about, you know, 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.480 a series of small discoveries and then maybe maybe you 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:08.520 hit a jackpot that's something really revolutionary in terms of technology. 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:13.400 I mean by pursuing technological innovation, everyone is essentially going 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.079 after that jack pot, right and naturally if they don't 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.920 get the jackpot, then it might look like they've lost out. Um. 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:23.920 That sounds good to me. I'm not sure how that's 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.360 a counterexample to what I'm trying to say, is it 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:32.480 essentially if I'm you know, if I'm understanding the question, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:37.440 is it basically that if everyone is sort of pursuing 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.599 technological innovation in its own right, and everyone wants to 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.960 be the next Mark Zuckerberg or the next Steve Jobs 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.839 or the next whoever, then that guarantees that a lot 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.600 of people are just going to be major losers, and 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.960 a lot of people are going to have spent a 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:57.160 lot of money and human endeavor endeavor that gets us nowhere, right, 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.559 But one person is going to get the big payout, right, 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.160 like one person is going to invent the new Facebook. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.880 That's the problem, right, That's that's part of the problem. 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:07.679 And the other thing is I think if we look 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.559 at education, for instance, engineering education at the college level, 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.800 it often focuses on innovation. So it's making students think 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.080 to be a good person or a great person, you 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.120 have to be an innovator. And yet about eighty percent 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.800 of engineering labor just goes into maintenance and upkeep, like 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.520 just totally ordinary stuff. And yes, to take care of 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:35.400 technological systems, introducing new things that introduce new efficiencies is important, 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.239 we know that, but there's a more kind of fundamental 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.480 and basic way of thinking about things, which is caring 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.000 for things. And yes, new things will be a part 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.960 of that overall process. So is this inevitable? I mean, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.200 in your view, this was a choice. This is a 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.600 value judgment that society has put on innovation, creating something 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:01.640 new versus maintaining something new, taking pride in keeping the 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:06.920 infrastructure of society, whether it's sort of physical infrastructure, technological infrastructure, 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.959 working for people. In your view, this is a value 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.920 choice that people have made. That's right. Yeah, I'm not 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:16.520 sure that they made it intentionally. I think these kind 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:21.360 of terms, especially very fattish terms, kind of seduce us, 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.920 right because they seem nifty, and especially when people are 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.160 telling you that innovation is how we get all these 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:32.120 good things, both increases in quality of life and economic growth, 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.120 it's very natural to kind of go after that thing. 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.960 I want to take a quick word for a sponsor, 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.199 but knowledge to work and grow your business with c 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.600 i T from transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.400 T offers commercial lending, leasing, and treasury management services for 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.400 small and middle market businesses. Learn more at c i 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.280 T dot com. Put Knowledge to Work. Okay, and we're 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.120 back with Lee Vincel. He's a professor of technological history 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.840 at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and we are talking 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:09.800 about the innovation fetish and the counterproductivity of our obsession 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:16.280 with words like innovation and entrepreneurship and disruption. Something that 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.719 I'm really interested in that I think maybe you can 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.959 speak to is you know, we've decided as a culture 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:26.640 and as a society that people who build a social 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.040 network and become a billionaire a few years later are 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.840 lauded to the moon. They're on the cover of magazines, 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.280 and everyone is told they have to hustle, and everyone 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.160 is told to go out and be the CEO of 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.920 their own their own brand. What what does that do for? Like? 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.240 Who wants to become a teacher in this culture, in 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.920 the culture that rewards sort of going out and scoring 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.360 big so fast. Who who would ever want to have 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.520 like sort of like a simple profession like teaching school children? 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.800 Teaching children, Yeah, it seems wait, but it has to 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.880 be done. On the subway ride over here, I actually 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.439 saw an ad for people becoming teachers and one of 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:12.080 the taglines was that you could encourage children to be innovators, right, 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.440 so even even to get people into teacher jobs. The 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.320 only way you can do it is through innovation. I saw. 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.040 I also saw someone right running for the local school 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.400 board in Maplewood, New Jersey where I lives, has the 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.160 word their name and it says creativity and innovation. Right. 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.720 So it's like the only point of our education system 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.920 has to be innovation at this point. So what's the 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.400 solution to this problem? Because, like the obvious one, I 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:46.920 guess is um for governments or policy makers to put 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.640 out some sort of um disincentive program and say we're 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:52.640 not going to talk about innovation anymore. We want to 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:57.960 quash all the innovation, which sounds like a pr nightmare, right, 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.720 And I would not do that. Yeah, So what would 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.760 you do? All? Right, there's this is kind of tough 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:08.440 on one level. What we're trying to do is an 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.640 engender a conversation about this stuff. And what we find 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.920 is just as innovation appeals kind of on both sides 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.360 of the aisle to both political parties, we also see 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:24.040 this maintenance discussion appeal to both political parties. So after 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.720 we had this conference at Stephen's Institute of Technology, it 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.440 got covered by the American Conservative online magazine. So I mean, 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:34.640 one of the things is trying to just create a 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.840 conversation about that. But my co author and I Andy 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.920 Russell were kind of classic progressives, right, So our answer 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.400 would be to put more funding into infrastructure, which luckily 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:47.880 more and more politicians are talking about, and then also 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.720 thinking about labor policy. So how can we encourage people 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.600 to be teachers when teaching jobs in the United States 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:59.240 pay so poorly, for instance, So sort of a spend 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.920 more on it, spend more tax people, and spend more 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.320 what about What do you think that would change the 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.800 culture around these things, because I mean I agree, like, yes, 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.880 economics would dictate if you offer teachers more money, you'll 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.280 get more people who want to be teachers. But you still, 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.200 I feel, my gut would be that you still have 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:24.640 this issue of no one is celebrating teachers and that 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.280 the culture is still encouraging everyone to be a Mark 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:33.680 Zuckerberg or a Steve Jobs or an Elon musk Um, 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.160 and that you still don't have like culturally, that's that's 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.680 not a thrilling thing for people. Yeah, I mean, you know, 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.320 I can talk about like a public information campaign around maintenance, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.120 but I'm not gonna I'm not sure how much that 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.040 actually does. I mean, I think ultimately we have to 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:56.720 start in the organizations we work in right and recognizing 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.040 those people who are doing all the crucial work to 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.920 just keep things going around us. I wanna go back 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.720 real quickly, because once when I was watching your talk 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.800 and thinking about this idea that this language around innovation 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.200 kind of shot up around the time productivity started to plateau. 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.840 It's interesting thinking about going back to you know, say, 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.800 like the inventors like Edison or Tesla, or the people 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.880 invented the uh, the steam engine. What were people talking 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.720 about back then? Were people talking about we need to 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.600 encourage innovation? Like what was the culture around in those 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:37.160 eras that got them really excited about inventing. I think 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.840 they were excited about the technologies themselves. They are enthusiasts, 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.240 and there was new technology on the scene. It seemed 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.000 like magic, you know, I mean, the light bulb is 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.520 a piece of magic, and so they were enthusiasts for that. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.199 I don't think anyone had any sense that this was 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.880 going to necessarily lead to economic growth at that time. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.160 That just wasn't a part of the way they're thinking. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.560 Was there any sort of rhetoric around the cult of invention, 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.320 Like when did that spring up? Yeah? So that you 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.199 know it, it develops throughout the twentie centuries. By the 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.639 twenties and thirties, corporations are creating things like the House 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.080 of Magic that was g e and so you you 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.280 started to see more and more encouragement of getting young 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.679 people to think about technology and engineering. And then of 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.840 course in the fifties, you know, this starts stuff starts 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.400 to be tied really connect closely with the Cold War 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.240 and like beating the Russians and things like that. I mean, 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.359 part of what I deal with in my written work 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.960 is how in the United States innovation is often tied 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.720 to fear of other people. Right, So, and you know, 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:43.480 we can think of the Cold War and science and 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.720 technology and the Russians. But then in the eighties, innovation 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.919 is really focused on the Japanese as a threat and 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.600 as an economic threat, and of course by the nineties 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.359 and two thousands then that switches to the Chinese and 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.639 it's all about the United States place in the global 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.760 economic system. So despite Silicon Valleys a sort of rhetoric 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:09.919 about technology bringing everyone together, there's actually deep rooted relationship 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.320 to fear of others that's quite ironic. So I have 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.760 a maybe it's a stupid question, but if we think 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:20.119 that part of this problem has to do with the 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:26.160 language itself and the use of terms like disruption and innovation, 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:32.120 could we solve the problem by just using other words 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:36.520 like instead of technological innovation, could we say something more boring, 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.280 like I don't know, mechanical advancement. Could we call like 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.480 Mark Zuckerberg the the I T guy that like got 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.160 lucky with that work. I mean that would work for me, Yeah, 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.280 I know it would work for others. Um, I mean, 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.680 you know, think about disruption. So people are still using 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.639 the word disruption a lot, and yet social scientists over 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.440 the last couple of years have really undermined Clayton Christensen's 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.920 notion of disruption and show that it happens far less 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:09.160 frequently than he assumed, and that it's far less important 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.880 for the overall economy than he said. And that's not 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:17.000 leaking into the broader community of users, right. I've noticed 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.440 that with them things like disruption and stuff like that, 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:25.600 and the disruptive innovation, that the theory that that's important 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.840 they seems to be kind of unfalsifiable because every time 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.560 there's some counterexample, you're like, oh no, you don't really 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.320 get the theory that actually like And so it's sort 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.760 of hard to pin down what that really means. But 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.159 if you use his term, I think he had like 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:43.359 ninety cases that he thought were case of disruption innovation. 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.520 When economists re analyze that data, they found that only 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.960 like seven cases of his ninety cases actually fit. What 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.280 is it? What is his definition and why does why 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.120 do most examples failed to achieve it? I'm not sure 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.480 in that study what definition they were working with, right, 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.639 I mean, I think that classic definition of is the 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.840 introduction of a new process or technology that undermines a 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.520 traditional industry. One thing I saw a stat last night. 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:13.280 I think it was just on Twitter, And so this 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.240 is like the worst kind of like journalism or punditry, 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.720 because I'm just mindlessly repeating something I saw it better. 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.840 But that something like the percentage of output in the 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.320 US economy that's done by like the top ten companies 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:31.320 is significantly bigger than it was ten or twenty years ago, 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:36.200 which sort of undermines this idea that technology is creating 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:40.600 this world. Really, incumbents are always collapsing in fact, you 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.880 look at the economic landscape and it seems to be 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:49.719 dominated by incumbents that are harder and harder to remove 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.639 from their perch or even look at something like a 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:54.840 lot of people have talked about this that if you 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.480 look at say the app store on your iPhone, the 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.119 top twenty five apps, almost everyone is either from Facebook, 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.280 Google or Amazon. There's actually and most the apps have 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.480 like one download or zero down right, and there's actually 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:14.600 very little churn of who's who's leading at the very top. Well, 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.720 I mean, I think that this part of what we're 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:19.560 trying to do with our Maintainers project. We're having the 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.400 second conference in April at Stevens, because we're just trying 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.280 to find more realistic and grounded ways of thinking about 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:30.080 the economy and technology. Right, So the kind of factoid 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:32.159 you just threw out there is exactly the kind of 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.600 thing we would point to and say, look at where 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.720 rhetoric is pushing us and thinking about the economy, and 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.080 then look at how the things are actually playing out 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.760 on the ground. So, in a sort of conclusion, what 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.159 do you let's talk about some goals. I mean, you 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:51.320 mentioned that like exploring the gap between our rhetoric and 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:54.479 what's actually happening. But what are a few things that 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.320 you'd like everyone to be thinking about and uh going 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.040 forward with this discussion because I think, ink, you know, 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.000 this is so novel, this idea to question the cult 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.159 of this that at this point you just want to 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:08.560 have the discussion about it. But what are some big 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:10.760 things that you'd really like people to be thinking about 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.679 specifically to reground the discussion in a more in a 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:20.000 productive way. I mean, so right, I mean, I think 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:22.640 the goal is to get people to think about what 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.800 technology is and what what it's doing in their lives. 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:28.919 So most of the technologies around us are very old, 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:31.000 you know. We can think of like box fans, which 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.479 have been around for a century and haven't changed. I 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:35.879 assembled a fan, uh the other day, and I was 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:38.600 pretty proud of myself because I'm not much of an assembler. 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:40.560 But I actually say so, I just want I just 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:42.880 want to get that in there for the record. So 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:46.040 I think it's about thinking thinking about technology in a 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:48.800 grounded way, remember reminding ourselves what it is, and then 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:52.840 reminding ourselves that what most people do in our society 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:57.680 is just keep this world going, feeding ourselves, feeding each other, 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.160 making sure things don't fall down on us. And yes, 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:04.800 innovation is important for the technological world around us, but 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:07.040 it doesn't play as big of a role as kind 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.800 of hypemongers want us to believe. Well, leave Insel, Professor 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:15.160 at the Steven's Institute of Technology. Thank you very much 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:17.119 for coming in. Thank you for having me forward to 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:20.600 your conferences coming up next spring. Yeah, that's right. What's 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:24.119