Long before I realize that I was queer, Alan Turing was my hero. Turing is known today as a larger-than-life figure who fought Nazis with his brain. He was instrumental in breaking the “unbreakable” cypher of the German Enigma Machine for the British and thus played a decisive role in…

High team performance is often described in terms of harmony — everyone pulling together. But in the workplace, this kind of harmony isn’t always healthy, and can be a sign of deeper problems. On innovation teams, high performance is defined not by harmony, but by its opposite: conflict; more specifically…

When I ask what innovation is, I often hear the term “invention.” Sometimes I hear “design.” Almost never do I hear “execution.” And yet, without execution there is no product, no service, no impact. Overvaluing invention and undervaluing execution leads to poor resource allocation and underperformance in most innovation-focused organizations. innovation is not driven by invention …

Almost a decade ago, a mentor at Apple drew this chart on a whiteboard: A time axis at the bottom, and two crossing curves. The blue exponentially decaying curve is the influence of decisions in product development. The green exponentially rising curve is the cost of the project, and also…

When doing innovation, don’t stack moonshots. It’s hard enough to get a single-stage rocket off the ground. Time and again, I’ve worked with brilliant people who have lots of great, innovative ideas. Great ideas that are synergistic, that could work beautifully together. And they want to stack them all in…

a proposal for the creation of a locally-issued, UBI-supporting currency to build a more robust and humane economy — introduction So, I’m here to talk about money. Specifically, I’m here to tell you about a new kind of money, a locally issued UBI currency I call the LUD, and the ways in which this new kind of money could make for a stronger, better, more humane economy. Along the…

I was there, in the building, when the modern machine learning revolution got started at Google in 2011; It was called Project Brain, and it started at Google [X]. I’d like to tell…

This essay is part of the “Managing Innovation” essay series that starts with “Innovation isn’t what you think it is.” For years, my Alphabet business card said “Director of Rapid Evaluation and Mad Science.” With my name on over 70 issued US patents and titles like Engineering Director and CTO…

This essay is part of the “Managing Innovation” essay series that starts with “Innovation isn’t what you think it is.” A previous version of this essay was published with the title “The Seven Perils of Innovation.” introduction I’m no stranger to success and failure. I’ve turned a crazy idea and a…