Creating the new increasingly is more than 50 percent of a top leader's job.

It would be fun too to put some of the great philosophers and political scientists of the past couple centuries into a time machine, have them look at the world today, and see what they think. Imagine Schumpeter, Malthus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Marx, and more! That would be good fun.

Why do people do crossword puzzles? There's no reward for completing one, but some people just like the challenge.

You can always figure out how to deliver things in somewhat controlled situations, but when you start to get into the reality of the market you start to figure out what isn't going to work.

Data about an innovative idea is rarely crystal clear.

Everyone knows innovation involves developing unique understanding of a market, thinking expansively to develop a solution, and then finding a way to test rigorously and adapt quickly.

In the face of uncertainty, many companies will default to asking their innovators to study and analyze, which can't actually ever provide a definitive answer. The decision-making systems here are meant to deal with the reality that decisions about innovative ideas will rely on patterns and intuitions. The best venture capital organizations deal with this challenge by staging investment, actively participating in startups they fund, tying decisions to learning as opposed to artificial dates on the calendar, and assembling a diverse team of decision-makers.