Entrepreneurial Innovation Comes More From Borrowing & Combining Than Invention

Add comment December 4th, 2007

I came across a good quote on innovation and invention in a  2004 article in Fortune Magazine by Harold Evans called “What Drives America’s Greatest Innovators“ (emphasis added)

[The] defining characteristic of the innovator: a determination to bring a brainwave into the bustle of the marketplace. […]

More innovations come from borrowing and combining than simple invention. “I invented nothing new,” Henry Ford said, “I simply assembled into a car discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work.” It sounds easy, but it emphasizes another quality more significant than originality: imagination as manifest in the ability to see relationships.

Harold Evans is the author of “They Made America” which was also made into a four hour PBS special.