"Imagine going to sleep in 1875 in New York City and waking up 25 years later...in 1900, the city has been entirely remade with towering steel-skeleton buildings called ‘skyscrapers’ and automobiles powered by new internal combustion engines."
What It’s About
Derek Thompson argues that America is experiencing a decline in groundbreaking innovation across science, business, and culture. Institutions increasingly prefer safe, familiar ideas to breakthroughs, leading to stagnation in everything from storytelling to scientific research.
Upshot
Thompson blames:
- The Attention Marketplace: Industries and institutions increasingly prioritize "familiar surprises," which offer established formulas and predictable success, over radical innovation
- Gerontocracy: Aging leadership in politics, science, and business restricts the generational turnover needed to foster paradigm-shifting ideas
- Vetocracy: Regulatory barriers and risk-averse governance thwart ambitious projects, from infrastructure to research
Did you know? The average age of new corporate CEOs has increased by more than 10 years over the last two decades.
Why It Matters
While the project of addressing barriers to material construction, renewal, and growth sit at the heart of the Abundance Agenda, Thompson identifies the need for a similar overhaul in national innovation, from the lab to the writers’ room.
Who Wrote It
Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic covering economics, culture, and technology. He is the co-author of Abundance with the New York Times’ Ezra Klein.
