innovation
Where new things come from and how they spread: invention against diffusion, and being near the factory floor.
FilterEveryone, all time334 from 183 people
- AT
Adam Tooze quoted
Economic historian, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis…
Their wordsIf it is true that dense agglomerations of people are incubators of innovation and change, the mistake is to focus on the degree of conformity with, or convergence to some predefined vision of modernity, rather than to focus on the "reinvention of society" that the Economist so aptly highlights.
↗Chartbook 479 Africa’s unprecedented urbanization - against historic normalization (#2)adamtooze.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 4 days earlier
- JC
Jack Clark quoted
Co-founder and head of policy at Anthropic
Their wordsMy view is that if AI systems can creatively problem solve to succeed at science, we should expect this to be a sign of their ability to generalize into many domains, including certainly AI research itself, which could have an explosive effect on innovation.
↗Import AI 477: In which I tell the IMF the Singularity has begunjack-clark.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
- SP
Sunil Pai quoted
Systems and developer-tools engineer at Cloudflare as of 2026
Their wordsevery piece of this stack would’ve been rejected for weekend projects a year ago because you’d have to spend too much time/effort/“innovation tokens” because of the unfamiliarity. now it’s actual fodder for ambitious and innovative ideas
- JP
Josh Puckett quoted
Designer, advisor and investor
Our readingExperienced people should not treat their knowledge as complete, especially amid rapid innovation
Their wordsIt is far too easy to regard the knowledge you have as an elder as complete, especially with all of the rapid innovations happening now. Old dogs should still learn new tricks.
- MB
Matt Birchler quoted
Designer, product manager
Their wordsThere's a chance, slim as it might be, that things won't go the way the've gone the last 30 years with digitization the moving to rental models for everyhing.
- 2 days earlier
- BD
Brad DeLong quoted
Economics professor at the University of California
Their wordsThose two factors make the creative-arts sector perhaps the heaviest of heaviest lifts as far as paid employment and technological change are concerned.
↗Arts Employment in America: CHART OF THE DAYbraddelong.substack.com
- 1 day earlier
- TB
Thorsten Ball quoted
Co-founder of Amp and co-host of the Raising an Agent podcast
Their wordsTo repeat: reconsider everything you thought about these models 4-6 months ago.
- ZM
Zvi Mowshowitz quoted
Writes Don't Worry About the Vase
Their wordsIf we’re going to keep getting close to four frontier model releases per month (Astra, Sol, Fable and Opus) then I’m realistically not going to be able to read all four cards cover to cover.
- 2 days earlier
- LR
Lenny Rachitsky quoted
Writer of Lenny's Newsletter and host of Lenny's Podcast
Our readingNobody has figured out how to build products in the AI era yet, and there is no one way to do it.
Their wordsBut what everyone agreed on is that there’s no one way to do it. My takeaway is we’re all still figuring it out, and the best way to do that is together.
- 2 days earlier
- SW
Simon Willison quoted
Co-creator of Django and creator of Datasette
Our readingFierce competition means the best AI model in the world gets knocked off the top spot quickly.
Their wordsWhen you release the best model in the world, it’s going get knocked off that pedestal pretty quickly. The competition is so fierce that you won’t get a long time at the top
- 1 day earlier
- GO
Gergely Orosz quoted
Writes The Pragmatic Engineer
Their wordsLondon + UK not being part of the EU (and thus not being as bound by regulation that slows down innovation) is a reason the UK's tech industry can pull away from the rest of Europe
- 1 day earlier
- MM
Mr. Money Mustache quoted
Pen name of the writer behind mrmoneymustache.com
Our readingNew productivity-boosting technologies tend to concentrate their rewards on the people who own them.
Their wordsone unfortunate side effect of these new inventions is that they tend to concentrate their rewards on the people who own them.
↗Will the AI Bubble Destroy our Retirement?mrmoneymustache.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- BD
Brad DeLong quoted
Their wordsThe café is one of the last machines we have for manufacturing the unplanned collisions.
↗Sana’a Café: Dwight & Telegraph: FRIDAY FOG & FLATLANDSbraddelong.substack.com
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Economics writer; author of the Noahpinion newsletter
Their wordsThe four eras of SF tech culture correspond to four different technologies that were at the center of the city's innovation ecosystem at different times: 1. The Web 2. Social-Mobile 3. Crypto 4. AI
- GO
Gergely Orosz quoted
Our readingAfter 20 years of little change, application development is now being hit by a new wave of change.
Their wordsApplication development did not change much for 20 years, but now, a new wave is crashing in.
- 1 day earlier
- PB
Paul Bloom quoted
Psychologist at the University of Toronto and professor emeritus at Yale
Their wordsReading broadly provides new ideas for studies, introduces you to new theories, and overall makes you smarter and more interesting.
↗Some non-obvious advice for psych graduate studentssmallpotatoes.paulbloom.net 1st of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- RS
Robin Sloan quoted
Novelist and writer, author of Mr
Their wordsThe internet absolutely didn't have to be this way - it could easily have been a giant AOL, a mas­sive Minitel.
↗Dragoncatcher: Another accidental advantagerobinsloan.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- HD
Horace Dediu quoted
Analyst of the business of technology
Their wordsYou wait years and years for the obvious to happen. So long that you give up. Then it happens.
↗Remember Netflix? Stock Downgraded As YouTube Harvests Viewersasymco.com
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Their wordsThe last four great examples of mostly-unassisted human technological innovation will go down in history as: - mRNA vaccines - Chinese electrotech - reusable rockets - GLP-1 drugs
- 1 day earlier
- RM
Ray Maker quoted
Reviews sports technology at DC Rainmaker — watches
Their wordsand sometimes you just fold the cards. Companies that don't take risks rarely succeed in tech.
↗Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar Hands-On: AMOLED meets Solar?!?dcrainmaker.com
- NL
Nathan Lambert quoted
Machine-learning researcher on open language models
Their wordsAnd my kind of statement is that I think the cycle from of having an idea and doing the experimentation to test it, I agree will be 10X faster very soon. But I don’t necessarily agree that I would say that AI researchers will be 10X more productive in net, which I would describe as the pace of the field’s complete understanding. And understanding is a different axis from just continuing to scale models. I think that’s one of my core confusions on the AI research side.
↗Debating RSI, the US-China Gap, and Jaggedness with JS Denain of Epoch AIinterconnects.ai
- 2 days earlier
- TE
Terence Eden quoted
British open-standards and open-source technologist
Their wordsWe have the technology - but we don't seem to be interested in using it.
↗Book Review: How to Build a Space Station by Jonathan Morrison ★★★⯪☆shkspr.mobi 3rd of 3 in this piece
- PS
Peter Sellis quoted
Former head of product at Discord
Their wordsAnd like there aren't really great ad products for messaging apps right now.
↗90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellisyoutube.com 8th of 18 in this recording
- 1 day earlier
- BD
Brad DeLong quoted
Their wordsAnd more than half the rise in the top 1% share since 1985 flowed through the pass-through businesses that was a "tax efficiency innovation" feature of the Reagan Revolution.
↗Passthrough Tax Loopholes & the Rise of the American Gentry: CHART OF THE DAYbraddelong.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- TB
Thorsten Ball quoted
Their wordsTokens are the new computing paradigm. Everything will be re-made on top of it. We’ve had deterministic computers for 80 years, so we confuse “how computers have worked” with “how computers must work.” We’re entering the post-binary era.
↗What I believe about the future of software developmentthorstenball.com 7th of 15 in this piece
- TB
Thorsten Ball quoted
Their wordsIt’ll take a generation for the “new software” to replace the “old software”. Just like there are people happily employed as ASP developers today, there will be people employed to write code in 10 years.
↗What I believe about the future of software developmentthorstenball.com 15th of 15 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- RS
Robin Sloan quoted
Their wordsI'm not invested in that future; most days, I think a minor bust would be a good thing.
↗Dragoncatcher: 'Ask for what you want' is a key skill for the 21st centuryrobinsloan.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- TF
Tim Ferriss quoted
Author of The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans
Their wordsYou can sort of see that anyone who's a pioneer who's trying to drive change is going to be attacked.
↗How to Legalize Medical Psychedelics in Your Country — Tania de Jong on The Playbook Behind Australia’s World-First Breakthrough (#883)tim.blog 2nd of 3 in this piece
- CD
Cory Doctorow quoted
Science fiction novelist, journalist and activist
Their wordsBut - by definition - it can't contain any of our future surprises, because it's just trained on the things we already know, and if we knew about something, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore.
↗Pluralistic: Textured (18 Sep 2026)pluralistic.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
- ST
Stuart quoted
Founder and editor of ToolGuyd
Their wordsThey failed to innovate, and failed to do much on the marketing or communications front.