“We can't only rely on consumers making individual choices. If you switched your energy to someone who told you they are selling you 100% renewable energy, that's great, but it doesn't shift the energy system to renewables. You need to have energy markets that are designed to encourage investment into renewable energy.”
— James Thornton
Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

The quote archive

Innovation

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

However, the landscape is shifting with the advent of digital transactions. The digitisation of money movement, transitioning from cash to digital, allows for traceability. This traceability generates data, which can be analysed to inform decisions.

— Naré Vardanyan

The notion that the Google or Chrome app could become redundant on mobile devices isn't far-fetched. In a future where direct URL visits are less common, the convenience of an all-encompassing app could significantly alter how we interact with our devices.

— Aravind Srinivas

CEO and Co-Founder of Anthropic, AI Safety Researcher

By the time he was still scrolling through his options, I simply showed him the answer on my phone. He was taken aback, admitting that this was a far superior approach. This experience exemplifies the revolutionary nature of answer engines.

— Aravind Srinivas

CEO and Co-Founder of Anthropic, AI Safety Researcher

It's quite rare to enhance the product experience and simultaneously challenge an existing business model. Typically, you manage to achieve either one or the other. However, Perplexity introduces a superior product experience by saving users time and eliminating the need for them to click through links. This disruption is nothing short of revolutionary.

— Aravind Srinivas

CEO and Co-Founder of Anthropic, AI Safety Researcher

To put it in perspective, every hour spent sitting beyond four hours daily increases mortality risk by 10%. I tackle this with a walking desk, using a treadmill at a low speed throughout my workday.

— Darshan Shah

Hip hop, in my view, stands at the vanguard of cultural and technological adoption, consistently ahead in both marketing and technological innovations. If you aim to create cutting-edge businesses, there's a lot to learn from these fields, which consistently remain at the forefront.

— Devo Harris

Suddenly, your intuition about what to build is much more likely to be right because you're building what's missing in the future. You're tinkering with technologies first hand, understanding what's new about them firsthand, and understanding what's missing to fulfill and actualize their full potential firsthand.

— Mike Maples Jr

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

My favourite question when evaluating a startup idea is, 'Is this from the future?' I'm not interested in your ideas about the future; I want to understand why you are living in it today. Why are you living in a different future right now than other people are?

— Mike Maples Jr

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

If you want to have a great startup idea, don't try to think of a startup. If you focus on creating a startup, you'll be grounding yourself in the present, studying customers living in the present, their problems in the present, and their unmet needs in the present.

— Mike Maples Jr

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

Most of the time, startup ideas don't work. Most of the time, the world stays as it is. The status quo has an advantage; it has a built-in upper hand. For a startup to win, it has to be not merely better than what's there; it has to propose something radically different, something that never could have existed before.

— Mike Maples Jr

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

At some point, while working on the rotation routine, I was watching a piece rotate on the screen. It was then that the idea struck me—the game could be played in real-time. That was the very first important 'aha' moment for Tetris.

— Alexey Pajitnov

Creator of Tetris, the iconic video game

When the first real version of the game came to life on my screen—without any decorations, scoring, or anything, just the playing field and the pieces—I couldn't stop playing. I realized there was something truly magical about the game. But I could never have imagined what it would become; that was one of the biggest surprises.

— Alexey Pajitnov

Creator of Tetris, the iconic video game

Transformation is about understanding how the market is evolving and positioning your organization for the future that's unfolding. It's about ensuring that you're there when that future arrives.

— Ron Shaich

Founder and former CEO of Panera Bread Company

STS-93, the mission where we launched the Chandra telescope, was conceived 25 years before we launched it. Someone had that vision long before it became a reality. This long-term perspective is essential.

— Cady Coleman

NASA Astronaut & Space Shuttle Mission Specialist

True innovation requires vision and the courage to take risks. Incrementalism carries little risk, which is why it's so often the path of companies.

— Phil Hess

If you really want innovation, you have to say 'no' a lot of times to what's incremental. Saying 'no' reinforces that the small stuff isn't enough.

— Phil Hess