Need, Speed, and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World's Most Wicked Problems

by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

Overview

World-renowned economist Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran provides a deeply insightful, brilliantly informed guide to the innovation revolution now transforming the world. With echoes of Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma, Tim Brown’s Change by Design, and Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, Vaitheeswaran’s Need, Speed, and Greed introduces readers to the go-getters, imagineers, and visionaries now reshaping the global economy. Along the way, Vaitheeswaran teaches readers the skills they must develop to unleash their own inner innovator and reveals why America and other wealthy, privileged societies must embrace a path of inclusive growth and sustainability—or risk being left behind by history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062096715
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	12/15/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	309
File size:	983 KB

About the Author

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran is an award-winning global correspondent for the <i>Economist</i>. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an adviser to the World Economic Forum, and an adjunct faculty member at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He is also the author of Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future (co-authored with Iain Carson), and Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and he is a regular guest on NPR’s Marketplace, PBS’s NewsHour, ABC’s Nightline, and other leading programs.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Welcome to the Ideas Economy 1

Part 1 NEED: Why Innovation Matters

1 Wicked Problems, Wiki Solutions 21

2 Cheap and Cheerful 51

3 Of Stagnation and Rejuvenation 69

Part 2 SPEED: Where Innovation Is Going

4 The Singularity and Its Discontents 91

5 So Long, Silo 107

6 Black Swan Kills Sitting Duck 136

Part 3 GREED: How to Win in the Age of Disruptive Innovation

7 The Sputnik Fallacies 163

8 Can Dinosaurs Dance? 196

9 Greed for Good 219

Conclusion: We Are All Innovators Now 251

Acknowledgments 263

Notes 265

Index 281

About the Author 293

What People are Saying About This

Paul Saffo

“Need, Speed, and Greed is an absorbing and deeply insightful guide to the wild new landscape of global innovation. It is a must-read for strategists and entrepreneurs alike.

Juan Enriquez

“A great Atlas for worlds known and unknown”

Editorial Reviews

Need, Speed, and Greed is an absorbing and deeply insightful guide to the wild new landscape of global innovation. It is a must-read for strategists and entrepreneurs alike. — Paul Saffo, Managing Director of Foresight at Discen Analytics

“A great Atlas for worlds known and unknown” — Juan Enriquez, Managing Director of Excel Venture Management, author of Homo Evolutis and As the Future Catches You

“The perfect primer for the postindustrial age….an insightful assessment of the changing global economy, complete with recommendations for how companies can thrive in a perpetually disruptive environment….[An] exemplary narrative.” — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Need, Speed, and Greed is an absorbing and deeply insightful guide to the wild new landscape of global innovation. It is a must-read for strategists and entrepreneurs alike.

Paul Saffo

A great Atlas for worlds known and unknown

Juan Enriquez

In his latest book, Vaitheeswaran (correspondent, Economist; Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet) focuses on innovation and its key role in global competitiveness. He stresses that innovation should be thought of as "fresh thinking that creates something valuable, whether for individuals, firms, or society at large." He urges readers to recognize "innovation is not a zero-sum game" (e.g., China's economic success does not indicate a failure of the U.S. economy), think locally, act globally (e.g., create coalitions), turn risk into reward through resilience, relearn how to learn, and remember that the path from stagnation to rejuvenation runs through innovation. Vaitheeswaran provides case studies throughout to illustrate innovation practices in companies and ways of finding ideas to innovate services in companies, and he refers to major studies on innovation. VERDICT A thought-provoking work that provides new ways of thinking about innovation with reference to competing in global markets. Of benefit primarily to scholars, professors of business, and graduate and postgraduate students.—Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Queens, NY

Library Journal

A correspondent for the Economist offers an insightful assessment of the changing global economy, complete with recommendations for how companies can thrive in a perpetually disruptive environment. Today's dizzying pace of innovation, and the attendant economic upheaval, represents both a challenge and an opportunity for businesses and consumers alike. Vaitheeswaran (ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, 2007, etc.) tries to make sense of the chaos by focusing on the need for an uptick in the pace of innovation, the frighteningly exhilarating speed at which it's happening and the transformative power of self-interest--that is, how greed has the potential to benevolently speed the coming of the postindustrial age. His examples of the problems created by globalization--which range from the threat of rapidly spreading "super bugs" to supply-chain disruptions created by natural disasters--are powerful, as is his case for how savvy decision makers can leverage new technology and means of communication to tap into innovative ideas in every corner of the globe. Examples of the latter include behemoth "dinosaurs" like Proctor & Gamble opening up their research and design function to encourage contributions from outside sources and medical device makers in China finding ways to produce portable, economical versions of previously astronomically priced testing equipment. Only a few fanciful tangents, including a discourse on "the Singularity"--the point at which machines will surpass humans in intelligence--and the author's well-intentioned but occasionally cumbersome attempts to provide a fully balanced account of the positives and negatives of technological progress mar this otherwise exemplary narrative. The perfect primer for the postindustrial age.

Kirkus Reviews