FIND ME ON

Twitter

GitHub


Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

By: Kenneth Stanley & Joel Lehman - Read: April 27, 2024 - Rating: 7/10

Definite objectives dominate modern incentive structures. But achieving ambitious goals & defining innovation rarely comes from optimizing toward such objectives. You may disagree with this premise right now.

This book will explain why the premise is both true, and critically important. It will show you why it's so easy to retro-actively misattribute what led to the great creations of the past - which is exactly what society has done.

It then provides an alternative approach to achieve greatness that has truly enabled all great science, innovation, arts, and progress - a strategy focused on individual stepping stones instead of big detailed plans.

Everyone needs to understand this. If you're intrigued, this 30 minute talk by the author communicates the point well - the book makes interesting additions but also gets redundant.