Ramez Naam Quotes

My job is to put as many ideas out there as possible every day. Some of them will get traction, some won't - some of them shouldn't.

It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.

To create something new is both thrilling and excruciating at the same time. It's great to have all these choices in front of you, and to have the writers in the room so you know exactly what they meant. But the downside is you want so badly not to screw it up!

You can't buy something which does not exist. In a way, let's make things exist and then judge later. Don't cancel the process of creativity too early; let it flow.

In order to innovate, you have to experiment.

Pubs are, disturbingly, where I hatch most of my best idea-sculptures: possibly it's something to do with the disinhibiting effects of alcohol, or maybe it's just having company to yack at.

Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

I'm one of those actors who is going to come in with 2,500 ideas. You can shoot down 2,499, but one of them you're going to like.

The innovative process is a fragile one, dependent on a complex, often messy interplay of imagination, competition, and exchange. Curbing new ideas hurts not only individual creators but the audience for which they create and the posterity that inherits their legacy.

It seems the best approach for any venture is a combo platter - Japan's quality-consciousness paired with America's willingness to experiment and (sometimes) fail.

The best thing for an actor is to try it his way. The way they do it may not work, but it may inspire me to try something else.

Just tasking a team to be creative won't get you to be innovative. It's having a corporate climate that gives people the space to experiment and take risks. Only then can you truly sustain it.

You have a lot of ideas …. I want them so I can test them.

Innovation is so hard and so frustrating; it takes the intersections of people with courage, vision, and resources.

Innovation requires an experimental mindset.

There is no science in creativity. If you don't give yourself room to fail, you won't innovate.

Creativity is our North Star. This way of working and this speed, this new opening and innovation, putting everything in discussion must remain at the base of what we do.

We love experimentation. That's where the gold nuggets come from.

My absolutely favorite time of working on a project is the time I spend not knowing what it is. Because the longer you live inside that period, the likelier you are to discover something new.

I miss that thing I used to do when I first started out where I would just spontaneously generate ideas and try things and see where they'd go.

I'm interested in having fun with ideas, throwing them up in the air like confetti and then running under them.

I have lots of ideas. Trouble is, most of them suck.

After you produce you can select. you can curate. you can censor. But for now, have bad ideas, lots and lots of bad ideas.

Don't be afraid of silly ideas.

All the creativity books in the world aren’t going to help you if you’re unwilling to have lousy, lame, and even dangerously bad ideas.