Peter and Dan discuss how evolutionary pressures speed up innovation, agreeing that the pandemic will accelerate technological progress and change our lives forever. In the arc of contemporary history, we will remember a clear distinction between life “Pre-COVID-19” and “Post-COVID-19.” To this effect, Peter and Dan demonstrate how business model innovation is at an all-time high, fueling historic levels of productivity and creativity for entrepreneurs in our new “work-from-home” economy.
In this episode:
- Peter talks about the search for grand challenges — problems that make you angry, or new phenomena you can’t live without — and the process by which you can turn these into solutions or new business models.
- Dan argues that “scary times” should not be so scary for tenacious entrepreneurs. As the most successful CEOs constantly face risks and unknowns, COVID-19’s uncertainties provide the perfect conditions for entrepreneurs to fail, learn, and thrive… Because building a successful business requires grit, perseverance, and trial by fire.
- Peter illustrates how intense pressure speeds up the inevitable. In a pre-COVID marketplace, when business owners knew they needed to downsize a department or kill a venture, most put it off “until tomorrow.” Yet as COVID-19 drives businesses to the edge, there is no debating, and one must take action.
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Dan and Peter discuss a common theme in theme in Silicon Valley — namely, that most people have no idea how quickly things are changing. The world is accelerating for a multitude of reasons, and the rate of acceleration is itself accelerating. In Peter’s words, this means, “We’re headed towards an amazing adventure in the next few decades.”
Peter and Dan explore the history of innovation over centuries and the “adjacent possible,” a concept developed by Steven Johnson in his book “
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