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 – Biological beginnings

Coming from the background of theoretical physics, Geoffrey West looked at the field of biology from the angle of complex adaptive systems. Given the seemingly infinite diversity of life, he set out to find the basic underlying principles that run through biological systems, hoping in the end to transfer those principles to social (human-made) systems like cities or … Continue reading Cities, companies, and innovation – Biological beginnings →

Malthus and Moore

Here's a nice puzzle for you: Is there any lesson that we could learn from the Malthusian Trap and apply that to Moore's Law? Or is that a bridge too far? Well, let's look at a couple of arguments. Thomas MalthusAt the very beginning of the 19th century, the political economist Thomas Malthus wrote "An Essay on the Principle of Population". Based … Continue reading Malthus and Moore →

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 →