Innovators
topic on 6 shows · 7 statements across 6 episodes · said 5 times in 4 episodes since 2019
the Knowledge Project 2 
Mixergy 1 
the Startup Ideas Podcast 1 
the a16z Podcast 1 
American Optimist 
20VC
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the Knowledge Project 2the a16z Podcast 1the Startup Ideas Podcast 1Mixergy 1
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 2 mentions in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
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7 statements about Innovators, every show
Esper: Excessive Checklists and Requirements In Defense Acquisition Hurt Innovation
“They've been conditioned over years to follow, for example, long checklists of things they must do. They like to build long lists of requirements that, that tell an innovator everything he or she must do to make it To make the technology the way it is. And I t…”
Esper: Pentagon innovation requires multi-million dollar bets and accepting frequent failure
“It can't be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It needs to be in the millions, at least, because that's what you need to get going. And also be willing, again, to have a 20, 30, 40% success rate. It's not going to be a hundred percent. If it's a hundred …”
Isaacson: Innovators should avoid early specialization and maintain broad curiosity
“So I think my lesson is be curious about everything. Don't specialize too soon. Be able to go deep on a few subjects, but make sure you can also go wide.”
Professional CEOs struggle to innovate more than founders struggle to manage
“And we thought there was a reason for that because it was much harder for a professional CEO to learn to be an innovator than for an innovator to learn to be a CEO.”
Connecting innovators to end users requires physical proximity
“What you have to do is make sure that the innovators Are linked to the, ah, users and developers, and the only way to do that is what I call sort of animal proximity. They have to be, they have to have, know each other, be together enough.”
Innovators will attack traditional venture capital profit pools
“What I think will happen is that innovators are going to attack those profit pools and the lack of innovation.”
Berger: Innovators Distinguish Themselves by Taking Ownership of Questions
“Ownership of a question is, is what every innovator does. Every innovator starts out with a question like why hasn't someone come up with a better way to do X? Okay. And most of us, when we ask that question you know, we're using our snow shovel and it doesn't…”