Ridley: No single human knows how to manufacture a complete pencil
Matt Ridley · #107 Matt Ridley: Infinite Innovation · Mar 23, 2021 · at 31:36
Matt Ridley references Leonard Read's essay 'I, Pencil' to illustrate distributed intelligence and the vast network required for modern goods.
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“There's an enormous network of people went into manufacturing this one pencil, and yet not one of them knows how to make a pencil. Not even the person working in the pencil factory. They just, because they don't know how to cut down a tree or grow coffee.”
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