Cities, companies, and innovation – Why companies will die

Geoffrey West started his scientific career as a theoretical physicist before he shifted his attention to complex adaptive systems. He focused on interdisciplinary research with a specific interest in the commonalities that social systems share with biological systems: Could it be that cities or companies actually follow the same underlying principles like plants or animals? Is London a great big whale? Is Walmart … Continue reading Cities, companies, and innovation – Why companies will die →

Cities, companies, and innovation – Why cities keep growing

A theoretical physicist and researcher of complex adaptive systems, Geoffrey West asked himself what social systems have in common with biological systems: Could it be that cities or companies actually follow the same underlying principles like plants or animals? Is London a great big whale? Is Walmart an elephant? In earlier work, he and his team had investigated the role … Continue reading Cities, companies, and innovation – Why cities keep growing →

Cities, companies, and innovation – Prologue

It's rather rare that I'm immediately fascinated when I hear about an idea for the first time, but Geoffrey West's 2011 TED talk about The surprising math of cities and corporations really stunned me. A theoretical physicist and former president of the Santa Fe Institute, West's quest is for a genuine science of cities, based on universal principles, with quantifiable … Continue reading Cities, companies, and innovation – Prologue →

Technology – A multi-purpose tool

Intuitively, we'll all subscribe that technology is a tool: we use technology to do something, we employ technology to achieve a goal. And that's entirely in line with Brian Arthur's definition of a technology as the orchestration of phenomena to achieve a human purpose. But what are those purposes? With today's post, I'll try to find out whether there are some … Continue reading Technology – A multi-purpose tool →

Three days, three breakthroughs

Wow, what a ride! Just between 10 and 12 December 2015 –within the blink of an eye– three events occurred that we will likely consider breakthroughs in a couple of years: the Paris Agreement, the launch of OpenAI, and the first successful run of Wendelstein 7-X. While one of those events is widely agreed as historic, the other two currently … Continue reading Three days, three breakthroughs →