I've come to the conclusion that the core characteristic that separates companies that get innovation from those that don't is a simple word: curiosity.

Aside from the equivalent of blowing up the lab or letting a pathogen escape, the only failure is spending too long or too much money to learn.

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

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is to embrace the idea of spurring creativity by letting hundreds of flowers bloom. I've never seen that lead to anything other than cynicism and hundreds of dead flowers.

You still want to be thoughtful about what you do, no doubt, but you have to learn through trial-and-error experimentation as well.

Of course, it is worth it to take the time to think carefully through your assumptions, and ensure you at least have hypotheses around how you will create value. But use the analysis as a way to focus attention on the most critical assumptions, rather than spend a ton of time massaging the numbers.

Anything that has low certainty or has a lot of impact should be tested early.