Sam Webster-Harris
speaker
698 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2025
last heard 8 Sep
Sam Webster-Harris’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And that's completely natural.
As humans, if something works, we stop thinking about it and take it for granted.
A bit like gravity or the sun rising.
But it is wise to remember that every primitive that we ignore today was once a radical innovation that somebody, somewhere, fought to establish.
A fact that we can rely on is that many future breakthroughs will depend on the primitives we build today.
We've now established a healthy understanding of primitive thinking.
As a framework, it really complements the technology Richter scale, which was the first mental model we introduced on the show for ranking innovations.
Combining these two ideas, we see that a level eight or nine innovation are the most important primitive building blocks for society to then build new creative ideas upon them that creates progress.
But you're probably noticing a pattern.
cloud servers, mitochondria, units of measurement.
These powerful innovations, they're not exactly flashy gadgets like the latest iPhone.
Many of them are hidden away, like perhaps a new battery cathode that makes batteries lighter, that allows smartphones, electric cars and drones to become more commercial.
We don't always have to search for the giant big idea, when actually small, reliable components that can be combined, these can be used to make countless new products possible.
ikea is a brilliant example they can sell you a bookshelf a sofa a kitchen because their factories create modular building blocks of furniture they have standardized drawer sliders shelf brackets locking screws panels that can flat pack efficiently and then snap together it is literally like human-sized lego sets for your house that create efficiencies that allow them to be a huge billion dollar empire
So, if this has made you excited to hack away at an idea that could spawn a thousand more ideas, I am very happy to hear it and I hope you consider it.
At this point, we are ready to explore how ideas get created and firstly we can look into some of the mistakes we make if we haven't got our thinking in primitive hats on.
They often say that the biggest determinant of success isn't how clever your idea is, it is the timing.
Let's say you invented Uber 10 years early, before smartphone adoption, GPS and cloud servers.
Well, that's a very nice idea that you have, but it's not going to happen.
Conversely, if you tried to build Uber 10 years after the smartphone, then you've completely missed the boat.
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