i want to suggest that you could make the case that steve jobbs is somewhat in a class by himself as a revolutionary. Is there anyone who's put more of a stamp on our weirdly radically different daily lives? I think you're right. There 's a very nice novel by robert harris,. very recent novel called the second sleep, which came out about a year ago and in which he am er. The plot away too much, but it's ancient time when we've lost most technologies. And one of the things i tri to figure out is why so many of the devices that belong to the ancients had a half bitten apple drawn fron them.
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.