Did you hear that joke about how Al Gore invented the interne? Or, perhaps you revere Vint Cerf for his role in designing TCP/IP? For a moment, try to forget everything you know about how the internet was invented and follow this thought...
25 years ago, if you tuned into nearly any news source you would have observed a bi-partisan panel of economists unanimously predicting that the U.S. economy would fall to 3rd in the world. Japan would be the largest economy at about $5 trillion, followed by Germany at $4 trillion. The U.S. was predicted to be somewhere in the range of $3.5 trillion in GDP. Economists were dead on with Japan ($4.5 trillion) and Germany ($4 trillion), but miscalculated U.S. GDP by a whopping $10 trillion. Never before in history, and not since then, have economists as a whole been so colossally wrong.
For modern societies, economy is everything. Economic expansion gave the U.S. its moral authority around the world. This engine afforded America the ability to maintain an edge in national defense, infrastructure, and other luxuries of prosperity. Democracy borrows its credibility from the fact that democracy (as an idea) actually worked in building the world's largest economic engine.
So why were economists wrong? They were wrong because they were using economic models that accounted for everything except talent.
Now back to the internet for a moment...
The internet was a major contributor to the $10 trillion worth of windfall GDP growth in American history...and while there were other contributors, this serves as a model for understanding the link between innovation and economic growth.
A review of the history of the internet is a story about people.
1) It required multiple geniuses. Beginning with Vannevar Bush in 1945 and Norbert Wiener soon after, the concept of the internet was conceived. J.C.R. Licklider and Lawrence Roberts paved a way for a national communications network. The use of packet switching came later thanks to Paul Baran and Donald Davies, and then the first communications were passed between UCLA and Stanford (led by Kleinrock and Engelbart). Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn later developed what would be the most widely used protocol (TCP/IP) around the world.
2) None of these brilliant inventors could have done it alone, but it didn’t take that many. In fact, if you look at the other contributors to economic expansion (Microsoft, Wal-Mart, etc), the total number of people to credit is quite small. Some 100,000 people can be credited with each contributing $100 million of GDP growth. Only 100,000 people or 0.03% of a society with 300,000,000 citizens. This number is staggeringly small.
3) Why were those 100,000 people living in the U.S.? Of all the places in the world, we were lucky enough to have them here. Is this the result of “American” genetics? No. In fact, of the 100,000 people who deserve credit for America’s expansion, more than half migrated from some other country.
This brings us to the most important insight on innovation. Innovation is not genetic, and it has very little to do with a person’s country of origin (including all of those societal factors; especially education).
Innovation occurs when you bring the right talent into the right environment.
For America, this happened when more than 50,000 individuals migrated here in search of a place to express their talent. The right environment was created by protecting the rights, liberties and freedoms of those people. I hope we don’t lose sight of that.
For your organization, this can occur when you focus on the right types of talent and bring them into a work environment that breeds innovation by incenting people to express their creativity and by protecting their rights and aligning with their ambitions.
In closing, let me offer 4 distinct types of talent that led to America’s affluence and I think could be helpful in your company.
1. Innovators. They get the ideas that create new products, markets and stock value.
2. Entrepreneurs. They are typically super-sales-people or rainmakers. They see an idea, recognize its potential, and figure out the necessary steps to make the idea a reality.
3. Superstars. These people are extremely creative achievers. Unusually gifted in niche disciplines. Technologists, designers, product architects or philosophers.
4. Super Mentors. Innovators, entrepreneurs and superstars rely on genius developers. Those developers are people who say, “Your idea can work. I’ll help.” Super Mentors may be inside or outside of your company, and add value because of their experience and network.
Do you have the right talent to innovate? What about the right environment?
Follow me on Twitter @clintcarlos
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