Spencer Greenberg: Effective altruism entrepreneurship I

By EA Global @ 2015-08-28T08:37 (+10)

This is a linkpost to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiVyRtS_d9o

Is it possible to innovate on purpose? Arguing against the standard 'genius' and 'luck' models of innovation, Spencer Greenberg presents four frameworks for deliberately seeking new ideas.

Notes by Nils: 

How to innovate on purpose

• It’s not useful to think it requires being a genius (Einstein)
• It’s not useful to think it’s about luck (wonderful idea from within the bathtub)

Innovative ideas need to be ...

a) ... impossible until now

I.e. looking at existing technology and thinking about using it in new ways; e.g. Machine Learning applied to cars → Google self-driving cars

To-do:

• Learn promising technology very well
• Ask the question: "What industries has this technology not been applied to yet?"

b) ... undiscoverable to others

I.e. find out what multiple topics / things you know, and thereby realising your potentially unique overlaps; e.g. programming language design + cloud computing → developing programming language specifically designed for cloud computing

To-do:

• Pick two unrelated topics you know a lot about
• Ask the question: “What does combining them make possible?”

c) ... stupid sounding

I.e. find the overlap between ideas that seem like a bad and a good idea at the same time, because you know some secret that makes the stupid idea seem like a good one; e.g., “let’s have anonymous random people argue to decide the facts on every topic” and “let’s have everyone trust this information” → Wikipedia

To-do:

• Ask the question: “What's an important truth you know that few do?”
• Ask the question: “What seems dumb unless you know this truth?

d) ... tiny at first

I.e. find the overlap between things people care about and weird people like you care about; e.g. “people can’t easily find Bay Area events, I will send an email list to my friends” and “I will let other people post their events too” → Craigslist

To-do:

• Tackle a problem had by a small group you understand
• Slowly expand the features for a larger and larger group

Entrepreneurial success depends on:

• Quality of idea
• Time commitment
• Ability to build the product
• Propensity to learn from feedback
• Skill at securing funds
• Relentless pursuit of success
• Sales and marketing skills
• Leadership
• Random chance

In the future, we may post a transcript for this EA Global: San Francisco 2015 talk, but we haven't created one yet. If you'd like to create a transcript for this talk, contact Aaron Gertler — he can help you get started.