Last week, I had the pleasure of delivering keynotes to two remarkable audiences of scholars and entrepreneurs. One thing was clear: folks have legitimate concerns about AI. But my strong belief is that it’s a dangerous mistake to wait to dive In, even amidst legit concerns.

Puzzled by underwhelming results despite your expertise? Discover the surprising insights from a groundbreaking study that can help you tackle challenges and achieve better outcomes.

One critical reason folks in organizations aren’t imagining radical new applications of GenAI is, their imaginations aren’t stimulated. My recommendation might fly in the face of convention, but it’s been demonstrated highly effective in both this AI-moment and in times past.

To stimulate innovation, ideas and experiments are critical. But how to free up resources necessary to drive new initiatives forward? Start by pruning back some work that’s past its prime. Here’s how.

Ed Catmull reveals the great secret behind Pixar’s success: they try before they’re perfect. “All our movies suck to begin with. Our job is to take them from suck to not suck.”

Seinfeld brilliantly details the core molecular structure of the creative process: equal parts idea generation and scientific testing. And he approaches the process with yeoman’s determination.

Business leaders should take a page out of one of the most brutally-straightforward innovation laboratories in the world: lessons from Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin’s stand-up routines.

Bernard Arnault became the richest man in the world — surpassing Musk, Bezos, and Buffet — not by focusing on profitability, but by foregrounding desirability. We all should.

Steve Martin’s reflection routine as a fledgling magician gives a masterclass in learning through experimentation: if you don’t reflect, you can’t connect the dots in unexpected ways.

One of the greatest misconceptions in innovation is that folks start with a good idea. How rarely that’s true. Here’s to starting, followed by enlightened iteration.

Many individual innovators, and the vast majority of organizations, expend far too many resources answering the illusive question, “Can it even be done?” Instead, they should invest a fraction of the effort to answer a simpler, more important question first.

Innovation is a numbers game, which is music to my ears since I’m a statistics nerd. One of my favorite counterintuitive statistical truths is Bayes’ Theorem. Study it to beat the entrepreneurial odds.

To arrive at a breakthrough, you have to take a break from the breakneck pace. Without reflection, important insights get missed. Just ask Steve Martin…

Volume and velocity are essential to breaking through. How do you increase both? Steve Jobs advocated an unexpected tactic…

The most popular post in my Stanford Slack channel illustrates a profound source of creative wisdom: “Would anyone be interested in staying after class tomorrow to brainstorm experiments?”

Spectacular entrepreneurs craft clever experiments. And a robust experimentation practice demands a rigorous ideation ritual. At Stanford, this is how folks build the muscle.

If you’re seeking innovation, then you’re going to fail a lot. These misses can’t weight too heavily on you. Seinfeld, Elon Musk, and others fail often. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

It’s hard to overstate the value of a good old fashioned obsession. Apathy is the enemy of creativity. Obsession fuels innovation. Here’s a great story of obsession at Netflix.

Experiment broadly! Fantastic example from Ogilvy on the power of fighting tunnel vision, which limit us to far narrower ideation and far fewer experiments than would be beneficial.

Most organizations’ first question of a new idea is its technical specifications: can we even build it? The most important question is not technical, but human. A better question is, “Should we build it?…”