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Matt Ridley

How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom Hardcover – May 19, 2020

by Matt Ridley (Author)

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Building on his national bestseller The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley chronicles the history of innovation, and how we need to change our thinking on the subject.

Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society. Forget short-term symptoms like Donald Trump and Brexit, it is innovation itself that explains them and that will itself shape the 21st century for good and ill. Yet innovation remains a mysterious process, poorly understood by policy makers and businessmen, hard to summon into existence to order, yet inevitable and inexorable when it does happen.

Matt Ridley argues in this book that we need to change the way we think about innovation, to see it as an incremental, bottom-up, fortuitous process that happens to society as a direct result of the human habit of exchange, rather than an orderly, top-down process developing according to a plan. Innovation is crucially different from invention, because it is the turning of inventions into things of practical and affordable use to people. It speeds up in some sectors and slows down in others. It is always a collective, collaborative phenomenon, not a matter of lonely genius. It is gradual, serendipitous, recombinant, inexorable, contagious, experimental and unpredictable. It happens mainly in just a few parts of the world at any one time. It still cannot be modelled properly by economists, but it can easily be discouraged by politicians. Far from there being too much innovation, we may be on the brink of an innovation famine.

Ridley derives these and other lessons, not with abstract argument, but from telling the lively stories of scores of innovations, how they started and why they succeeded or in some cases failed. He goes back millions of years and leaps forward into the near future. Some of the innovation stories he tells are about steam engines, jet engines, search engines, airships, coffee, potatoes, vaping, vaccines, cuisine, antibiotics, mosquito nets, turbines, propellers, fertiliser, zero, computers, dogs, farming, fire, genetic engineering, gene editing, container shipping, railways, cars, safety rules, wheeled suitcases, mobile phones, corrugated iron, powered flight, chlorinated water, toilets, vacuum cleaners, shale gas, the telegraph, radio, social media, block chain, the sharing economy, artificial intelligence, fake bomb detectors, phantom games consoles, fraudulent blood tests, faddish diets, hyperloop tubes, herbicides, copyright and even―a biological innovation―life itself.

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From the Publisher

Review

“Matt Ridley is one the best non-fiction writers of his generation. He could be described as England’s Yuval Harari...His latest book is a pleasure to read: he carries his considerable learning with an engagingly light touch…Great book. Read it. You’ll be glad you did.” (Forbes Magazine)

“Ridley constructs a fascinating theory of innovation, including its prehistoric roots, how it will shape the future and what makes it successful.” (Scientific American)

“An insightful and charming exploration of questions that range from the truly profound (How does our species capture energy to stave off decay and death?) to the merely fascinating (Why did it take us so long to invent the wheeled suitcase?).” (Steven Pinker)

“A fascinating look at how innovations have shaped the modern age and how the process remains integral to the contemporary world…How Innovation Works is a provocative and necessary read for considering future directions for societies and governments.” (Shelf Awareness)

“In this insightful and delightful book, Matt Ridley explores the wondrous causes of innovation, the force that drives our modern economy. He shows that it’s a team sport, but one that features many colorful stars. It’s a joy to tag along with him as he mines the history of human advances to discover nuggets of useful lessons.”
(Walter Isaacson)

“How Innovation Works is an entertaining attempt to explore what innovation is, how it works and why it is resisted… Packed with insightful examples…Engaging.” (Financial Times)

“Opinionated, often counterintuitive, full of delicious stories, always provocative.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

About the Author

MATT RIDLEY is the award-winning, bestselling author of The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, and The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. His books have sold more than one million copies in thirty languages worldwide. He has written for the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London as well as the Economist. He is a member of the House of Lords and lives in Newcastle and London.

Product details

Publisher : Harper (May 19, 2020)
Language: : English
Hardcover : 416 pages
ISBN-10 : 0062916599
ISBN-13 : 978-0062916594
Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1.29 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #15,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10 in Engineering Patents & Inventions
- #11 in Scientific Research
- #15 in History of Engineering & Technology

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John Dana Chisholm

Deeply insightful culmination of Ridley's books

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2020

After reading just the Introduction to How Innovation Works, I felt the same thrill I had over 30 years ago upon reading the first chapter of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. Dawkins’ chapter showed how our genes control us to help them replicate; the Introduction of How Innovation Works shows how innovation is evolution with thermodynamics at its foundation. Very different books opening with comparably fresh, unconventional perspectives.

From that dramatic departure, How Innovation Works ascends. The first seven chapters captivate with stories of innovations in energy, transport, health care, and more. Ridley unearths gripping details of even such familiar innovations as the airplane and vaccine. The writing, unlike that of many science writers, is masterful, urbane and polished. These chapters will be a treasure trove for anyone teaching or researching innovation.

The last five chapters crystallize from those case studies principles and implications for enabling innovation. The climax for me was Chapter 8, which distills principles such as incrementalism, serendipity, trial and error, recombination, and most importantly, freedom as essentials of innovation. The remaining chapters elaborate on these principles, covering, for example, FCC regulations that hampered the use of mobile telephony, and the EU’s regulatory obstacles to widespread use of GMOs.

Unlike The Selfish Gene, Dawkins’ groundbreaking first book, How Innovation Works is the mature culmination of Ridley’s books so far. It builds on, integrates, and extends his books on genes (Genome, Nature via Nurture), evolution (The Red Queen, The Evolution of Everything), and economics (The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves). How Innovation Works thus exemplifies the very path-dependent, evolutionary process that innovation follows. Indeed, only Ridley, having forged that path, could have written this deeply insightful book.

61 people found this helpful

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"Innovation offers the carrot of spectacular reward or the stick of destitution." Joseph Schumpeter

Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2020

In the Introduction to his brilliant book, Matt Ridley cites a concept introduced by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It helps Ridley to recognize how man achieves what may seem improbable by expending or converting ennergy, "powered by a fictional 'infinite improbability drive.' Yet a near-infinite improbability drive does indeed exist, but here on Planet Earth, in the shape of the process of innovation."

Ridley goes on to explain, "Innovations come in many forms, but one thing they all have in common, and which they share with biological innovations created by evolution, is that they are enhanced forms of improbability." He thoroughly explains how and why Schumpeter's assertion -- with rare exception -- is true. He also has much of great value to say about resistance to innovative thinking. "Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of innovation is how unpopular it is, for all the lip service we pay to it."

Human nature seems to prefer a known devil to an unknown devil. Long ago, I realized that most people do not fear change; they fear what is unfamiliar. James O'Toole suggests that the strongest resistance to change tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Here's another candidate from J.B.S. Haldane: "There is no great invention, from fire to flying, that has not been hailed as an insult to some god."

At one point, Ridley observes, "The twentieth century saw only one innovative source of energy on any scale: nuclear power. (Wind and solar, though much improved and with a promising future, still supply less than 2 per cent of global energy.) In terms of its energy density, nuclear is without equal: an object the size of a suitcase, suitably plumbed in, can power a town or an aircraft carrier almost indefinitely. The development of civil nuclear power was a triumph of applied science, the trail leading from the discovery of nuclear fission and the chain reaction through the Manhattan Project's conversion of a theory into a bomb, to the gradual engineering of a controlled nuclear reaction and its application to boiling water."

These are among the other passages in Chapters 1-7 of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest the scope of Ridley's coverage:

o What Watt wrought (Pages 24-26)
o Thomas Edison and the invention business (26-31)
o Nuclear power and the phenomenon of disinnovation (36-41)
o Lady Mary's dangerous obsession (50-55)
o Fleming's (64-69)

o The locomotive and its line (80-87)
o The Wright stuff (95-103)
o How fertilizer fed the world (118-129)
o Insect nemesis (136-141)
o When numbers were new (149-154)

o Crinkly tin conquers the Empire (159-162)
o The container that changed trade (162-170)
o The first death of distance (178-183)
o The miracle of wireless (183-188)
o Who invented the computer? (189-196)

o The ever-shrinking transistor (196-204)
o Machines that learn (211-215)
o The first farmers (216-222)
o The feast made possible by fire (234-137)
o The ultimate innovation: life itself (237-239)

In the subsequent five chapters, Ridley examines "Innovation's essentials," "The economics of innovation," "Fakes, frauds, fads and failures," "Resistance to innovation," and "An innovation famine."

Obviously, this is neither the first nor will it be the last book that concentrates on one or more dimensions of innovation. However, none of them will surpass what Matt Ridley achieves in How Innovation Works in terms of scope and depth of interconnected, indeed interdependent coverage.

Most people will agree with him that innovation is "the child of freedom and the parent of prosperity." And I share his hope that our improbability drive can somehow overcome the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity that seem so much greater now than they were at any prior time I can recall.

I congratulate him on a brilliant achievement. Bravo!

50 people found this helpful

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hgpilot - MM

Meh - Not sure who these other reviewers are.....

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2020

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Not sure who these other reviewers are.....a little too glowing to be legitimate I think. I struggled through this book and having read a ton of innovation books in the last 6 years (my professional title is "Innovation Strategist" - for a publicly traded company) - and I know a little something about this topic. The book isn't bad but like many business books it's very academic and not always easy to read - at least for anyone trying to get an easy overview of the topic. Ridley goes through a detailed analysis of many historical aspects of innovation but in my opinion never ties it back to anything other than a good story - assuming the reader will make those connections on their own. Bottom line - it reminds me of concentrated orange juice that hasn't been mixed right - very strong and needs a little watering down for the "everyman".

Also disagreed with a few of his conclusions (like the failure of the Segway) but those disagreements are inevitable when you're reading books like this.

2.5 stars - but rounded up because it doesn't exist.

24 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Duncurin

Light Bulb Moment

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2020

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Oooh, fabulous book from Matt Ridley. Duncurin was fortunate recently to review a book by Brian Greene (Until the End of Time). My criticism of that book was that it failed to illustrate how special, how fascinating and how complex we humans can be - as well as of course, at times, demonstrating lesser qualities! No such concerns with this amazing book as the fascination, the wonder keeps coming page after page as one feverishly and excitedly turns to the next. Not that Matt Ridley is not also fully conversant with so many technical discussions and I particularly liked his words on fertiliser, heat to work, g/W, nought/zero, gene editing and so many other examples that I will leave for you to discover for yourselves. In between such wonderful subjects there are also fascinating facts scattered liberally, and obviously garnered after painstaking research, such as Ericsson’s contra-rotating propeller. More than this, the book has a facilitative, ‘can do’ rich seam running throughout and such a stance is the perfect antidote for these troubled days where constant sniping of the efforts of others is the norm together with a negativism that seems to extend in every field of human endeavour.
Much of the narrative is laid down under the umbrella of human innovation and of course the author clarifies that he is not talking of invention and illustrates this with numerous examples of how sometimes independent and at times collaborative efforts came up with the same results as others and steadily and incrementally improved upon what had come before. It’s also true that in talking of human innovation we are in reality also talking of many and varied human facets all of which contribute to the central thesis of innovation. Thus, if we took as an example of penicillin mold growing on a petri dish. First, we would have to see it. Then we’d have to recognise exactly what we’ve seen, then we’d have to guess or postulate why we are seeing what we see and then we’d have to find a way or an experiment to clarify whether our assumptions fit this picture. This in turn relies on so many human qualities: the restless spirit, the enquiring mind, the ability to see behind a given problem, to try and to test and ultimately to devise a way of proving what we’ve hitherto guessed at.
I was a bit unsure about the author’s assertion that we must be free to speculate and experiment and that war or hardship is not a particularly great driver of innovation. Though I’d fully agree that one is more likely to be innovative if looking at financial or social success than have Stalin threatening to send you to the gulag if you don’t reverse engineer that Rolls-Royce jet engine in double-quick time! Although the author deconstructs arguments such as wartime driving the development of radar for instance, there are many other examples where humans under pressure delivered admirably such as the creation of the first Dreadnought in just about a year, the Hedgehog (mortar), squid, the longbow and of course the Firefly (tank) all made in a hurry when Britain’s back was to the wall. Furthermore, so many prime movers in the innovation stakes were themselves touched by personal difficulty, adversity which perhaps in turn made them more receptive to the forces of innovation.
I’m also delighted that the author came down firmly with the assertion that poverty is falling, as it is, not just in the UK but across the world and I’m sure that innovation has a great role to play in this continuing at a rapid and ever-increasing rate.
I also liked the discussion of some older disruptive beliefs; for instance that potatoes were ungodly and sadly such preconceptions abound today in all societies whether we talk of ground rhino horn as being good for us or the latest crackpot to call out some vaccination or other as giving all our kids autism which then takes years and years for us to turn round while the poor kids become badly damaged by whooping cough and measles, and still does!, all of which could have been prevented by such charlatans in keeping their mouths shut.
Other quick thoughts before I leave you to enjoy this fabulous book:
I wonder if blockchain shows more promise with warehousing and logistics than in finance.
Coffee has been proven to extend one’s lifespan- at least 2 cups a day.
The Duke of Wellington opened Eccles Station.
I would have thought Tim Berners-Lee should have had a bit more of a mention.
The first are indeed not always the best. Zantac and Lipitor became the world’s most profitable drugs though neither were first.
When I qualified, heart failure was regarded as a terminal condition. Then came some fabulous drugs such as Ace Inhibitors and more which turned this condition around.
I’ll believe in self-driving cars when I have seen one get through the Worsley Interchange at 8am.
French ships were generally regarded as being of a superior innovative design to the slower British efforts, but rapid rate of fire, bravery, daring and an acceptance of staring into the barrel of a gun literally - brought success.
Never dismiss pure luck and chance, Viagra was initially developed in Sandwich in Kent as a blood pressure pill !
At one lecture I was lucky to be present, the cardiologist said that we all have two jobs. One is our normal day job and the other is the job that we all have - a duty and responsibility to improve the way and how we work.
A nice discussion about the tendency of some areas to over-regulation and unfair assessments of one country's vacuum cleaners over another. Also, towards the end, the author seeks some of the reasons that stifle innovation. Lack of entrepreneurial veuve, willingness to take risks and a blame game culture are high up there. The airline industry has a no blame culture, ‘let’s move on’ whilst I have seen so many medical professionals be destroyed by mistakes that are there for all of us but for the grace of God. Humans need to make mistakes to move on.
Lastly, although the book is rich with what I shall call ‘human content’ remember that there are higher levels of human magnificence that we can all aspire to, that extend above and beyond our ability to innovate or otherwise – though of course few of us are about to change the world! I’m not even talking of the obvious ones like love or faith either. Some years ago, a lady came to see me who had a responsible job at our local hospital. She told me that she was sorry to trouble me but her friend had just died of pancreatic cancer and since that time her tummy did not feel right. I put her up on the couch and organised blood tests all of which were normal. She returned saying that she could still feel that something wasn’t right. I sent her off for an ultrasound scan of her pancreas and other abdominal organs. This too was normal and she returned once again apologising but saying that she felt no better. I told her that I was happy to keep going until I ran out of ideas and sent her off for a gastroscopy. There on the lesser curve of her stomach was the tiniest gastric cancer. This was at a very early stage and meant that she had an excellent chance of a full recovery. The female surgeon thanked me for referring her so early and so promptly. In reality, however, I had nothing to do with saving her. It was a particularly powerful and wonderful human trait that we all have and can cultivate and which, in my view, rises above our ability to innovate. The stomach cancer was so small there was no way that she could have felt it. Ultimately instinct had brought her to me and this is what had saved her. I just listened to her and put the tools in her hands. She saved herself by her own instinct. Learn its ways and use it wisely – this book is a good start. Enjoy.

19 people found this helpful

O. G. M. Morgan

Thought-provoking and generally persuasive

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2020

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Matt Ridley explains, in his characteristically lucid style, what innovation is and is not and what drives it. His conclusions are persuasive, sometimes depressing. He explodes the common myth of the brilliant inventor, working in isolation, coming up with something no-one has ever thought of before. Not only is he a firm supporter of the "ninety-eight per cent perspiration" definition of invention, but he produces numerous examples where many people were perspiring on the same problem simultaneously.

Ridley is also a fan of the accidental nature of invention. Alexandrian Greeks grasped the concept of steam power more than two thousand years ago and built contraptions to demonstrate it. Nobody, however, came up with a practical application and it's quite possible that nobody ever gave it any thought. Alexander Fleming was aware that he had made an interesting discovery, when he chanced upon penicillin, but it took another dedicated team, with considerable trial and error, to find a way to exploit it. Patent history is littered with cases where one inventor claimed to have invented something before a rival managed to patent it first. Quite possibly, a lot of these claims have been true, but irrelevant; one inventor sees potential for the invention, while the other puts his papers in a drawer somewhere and forgets about them.

Patents are quite a major issue for Ridley, because he does not consider them, by any means, an unalloyed blessing. That is especially true in the present day, where large firms submit patents as vaguely worded as they can get away with, precisely with the intent of discouraging nimbler, more genuinely innovative competitors from bringing new ideas to market. Matt Ridley points out that the global pharmaceutical companies spend more on protecting their patents than on original research. The same is often true in IT. He mentions law firms whose sole business model is to buy up patents and then to litigate against any start-up whose bright idea may be argued to be covered by an existing patent. Patents were never intended to inhibit innovation, but that is precisely how they are used today.

In fact, Ridley argues, there is a depressing tendency among governments and their regulatory bodies to put roadblocks in the way of innovators. Sometimes, the vested interests lobbying for strict controls (i.e. to favour the status quo) are major companies, but they may also be activist pressure groups. Ridley is withering about the environmentalist uproar against genetically modified crops and advanced pesticides and insecticides. He observes the absurdity of the fact that so-called "organic" farming deploys not only more of both than modern farming does, but that it is more destructive to the environment, too. Organic farmers get away with using certain chemicals solely because these concoctions were introduced quite a few decades ago. There is nothing remotely organic about them. Modern pesticides and insecticides are directed at particular destructive species, so that they do no harm to beneficial or harmless ones. They are highly effective, allowing greater yields from smaller areas of farming, releasing land back for wildlife.

The chemicals used by organic farming are much less effective, but carry a range of side-effects. They are toxic and indiscriminate and enter both the food supply and, often, the water supply. Yet regulatory bodies have often stalled the introduction of demonstrably beneficial agricultural advances, using essentially superstitious arguments which would hardly have been out of place in the Middle Ages.

Without a doubt, regulators don't come well out of this book. Both Washington DC and Brussels are crawling with lobbyists and, let's face it, it's not their silver-tongued eloquence which gets them their results. Matt Ridley is pessimistic for innovation in the United States, but seems to believe the concept is altogether dead within the EU. Time and again, new technologies, or enhancements to existing ones, are held up by Brussels, or blocked entirely, sometimes when the innovations in question derive from within the EU itself.

My only real criticism of this book concerns the author's rather cavalier references to wider history, meaning history not directly connected to the innovations under discussion. I found a number of those assertions fairly dubious and open to question, to say the least.

I deducted one star, therefore, but I still highly recommend this book.

3 people found this helpful

William

Ridley fails to identify why innovators or inventors do their thing.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 21, 2020

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The first chapters of this book trot us through relatively familiar territory to most innovators, and it is self-evident from the book's content that non-innovators are unlikely to pick it up and read it. Why Ridley treats us to a dissertation on fire, which like water was not invented, is hard to see, whilst ignoring the wheel, which was. A more glaring omission is the focus on Edison but lack of analysis and recognition of the crucial role of Bell Labs with its numerous inventions and innovations, not least the transistor and the laser, as well as software such as Unix and C. I would also take issue with him over the primacy in computing of Tommy Flowers' Colossus computer, as it seems facile to dismiss it as a "single-purpose" machine, when virtually every computer, until the advent of timesharing in the 1960's was, in effect, a single purpose machine. He also fails to mention Professor Donald Michie at Manchester, who wrote the very first computer programme.
These are minor criticisms, in what generally is a well-researched book, which improves significantly when he advocates with some passion, the necessity of innovation in ensuring the progress of the human race. It is therefore all the more surprising that he does not examine in any great detail the motivation of inventors and innovators. Surely this should be at the centre of his work since it is obvious that money and fame are not the main drivers because so few innovators, and even fewer inventors, achieve either. He therefore scores a B minus for this work, worthy of being read nevertheless.

3 people found this helpful

dikdok

How freedom is necessary for innovation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2020

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Innovation is easy to frustrate. It requires a high degree of cultural, economic and intellectual freedom to succeed. If, for example, the precautionary principle had been applied in earlier times we would not have had the railways, the internal combustion engine, vaccination, modern communications, life saving medicines, productive agriculture and host of other things that free humans from the drudgery of the ‘nasty, brutish and short’ lives that our ancestors lived for thousands of years.

2 people found this helpful

Mally

Rallying Cry or Swansong?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 18, 2020

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A fine celebration of the heroes, heroics and frustrations of man's most creative endeavours. The pursuit of trial and error has proven over millennia to be the essential partner to ingenuity. The barriers to success remain in the hands of bureaucratic government departments, sclerotic supra-national organisations and cosy cabals of crony-capitalist lobbies. Matt Ridley's gift is to point out the way forward; our duty is to listen and act.

2 people found this helpful

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