Silicon-based life may be impossible for one other reason: silicon bonds readily dissolve in water. — Steven Johnson Impossible Copy Share Image
This is how great intellectual breakthroughs usually happen in practice. It is rarely the isolated genius having a eureka moment alone in… — Steven Johnson Age Copy Share Image
Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualities—a certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosity—but they also share… — Steven Johnson Attributes Copy Share Image
The economics of television syndication and DVD sales mean that there's a tremendous financial pressure to make programs that can be watched… — Steven Johnson Aliases Copy Share Image
“Bill Gates (and his successor at Microsoft, Ray Ozzie) are famous for taking annual reading vacations. During the year they deliberately cultivate… — Steven Johnson Books Copy Share Image
“Those early spectacles were called roidi da ogli, meaning “disks for the eyes.” Thanks to their resemblance to lentil beans—lentes in Latin—the… — Steven Johnson Copy Share Image
Calculus, the electrical battery, the telephone, the steam engine, the radio - all these groundbreaking innovations were hit upon by multiple inventors… — Steven Johnson Batteries Copy Share Image
“Radios, vacuum tubes, transistors, televisions, solar cells, coaxial cables, laser beams, microprocessors, computers, cell phones, fiber optics—all these essential tools of modern… — Steven Johnson Cell phone Copy Share Image
It is extraordinary how safe flying has become. You are now statistically more likely to be elected president of the United States… — Steven Johnson Achievement Copy Share Image
One of the stories I love is how Gutenberg’s printing press set off this interesting chain reaction, where all of a sudden… — Steven Johnson Book Copy Share Image
“…it is the public sector I find more interesting, because governments and other non-market institutions have long suffered from the innovation malaise… — Steven Johnson Good ideas Copy Share Image
“The second analog-era mechanism that encourages serendipity involves the physical limitations of the print newspaper, which forces you to pass by a… — Steven Johnson Copy Share Image
What I'm saying is individuals have better ideas if they're connected to rich, diverse networks of other individuals. If you put yourself… — Steven Johnson Connected Copy Share Image
Some great minds become great by turning the rubble of an exploded paradigm into something consistent and meaningful. Others become great by… — Steven Johnson Consistent Copy Share Image
“When it first emerged, Twitter was widely derided as a frivolous distraction that was mostly good for telling your friends what you… — Steven Johnson Business model Copy Share Image
How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so… — Steven Johnson Deserve Copy Share Image
What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of… — Steven Johnson Boundaries Copy Share Image
As much as we sometimes roll our eyes at the ivory-tower isolation of universities, they continue to serve as remarkable engines of… — Steven Johnson Engines Copy Share Image
“And so it was with the Broad Street well that the decision to remove the pump handle turned out to be more… — Steven Johnson First time Copy Share Image
“Building by building, Chicago was lifted by an army of men with jackscrews. As the jackscrews raised the buildings inch by inch,… — Steven Johnson Architecture Copy Share Image
If you look at history, innovation doesn't come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can… — Steven Johnson Creating Copy Share Image
This is not the wisdom of the crowd, but the wisdom of someone in the crowd. It’s not that the network itself… — Steven Johnson Connected Copy Share Image
“What made Bell Labs fundamentally different had as much to do with antitrust law as the geniuses it attracted.” — Steven Johnson Copy Share Image
