Start with a growing market. Swim in a stream that becomes a river and ultimately an ocean. Be a leader in that market, not a follower, and constantly build the best products possible.
Robert NoyceRead
Optimism is an essential ingredient of innovation. How else can the individual welcome change over security, adventure over staying in safe places?
Interpretation
Optimism fosters a willingness to embrace change and take risks in pursuit of innovation.
This quote highlights the importance of optimism as a driving force behind innovation. It suggests that a positive attitude allows individuals to prioritize change and adventure over the comfort of security. Without optimism, it would be challenging for individuals to embrace new ideas and venture into the unknown, which is essential for progress and creativity.
In practice
During a team meeting about new project proposals, I mentioned, 'As Robert Noyce said, optimism is an essential ingredient of innovation.'
Start with a growing market. Swim in a stream that becomes a river and ultimately an ocean. Be a leader in that market, not a follower, and constantly build the best products possible.
My view is there's no bad time to innovate.
Most innovation is not done by research institutes and national laboratories. It comes from manufacturing - from companies that want to extend their product reach, improve their costs, increase their returns. What's very important is in-house research.
To be an inventor, you have to be willing to live with a sense of uncertainty, to work in this darkness and grope towards an answer, to put up with anxiety about whether there is an answer.
Just as producers often give consumers things they want but didn't think to ask for, consumers sometimes come up with surprising uses for new inventions. When a new product appears, it can uncover dissatisfactions and desires no one knew were there.
I believe innovation is the most powerful force for change in the world. People who are pessimistic about the future tend to extrapolate from the present in a straight line. But innovation fundamentally shifts the trajectory of development.
Ideas that transform industries almost never come from inside those industries.
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