i think the picking of the inventor a, the great mind, the great whatever, appeals to our sense of romance there. I should just add the first half of my book is stories about people. And i single out these people, i tell their stories, but i do so partly in order to say that although these people achieved incredible they invented the steam engine, or vaccines, or whatever it might be. They did so as part of a process and part of a team andpart of a group. And they weren't gods. It's quite an important lesson to teach young people, particularly to day.
What's the difference between invention and innovation? Could it be that innovation--the process of making a breakthrough invention available, affordable, and reliable--is actually the hard part? In this week's EconTalk episode, author Matt Ridley talks about his book How Innovation Works with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Ridley argues that we give too much credit to inventors and not enough to innovators--those who refine and improve an invention to make it valuable to users. Along the way, he emphasizes the power of trial and error and the importance of permissionless innovation.