SUSAN MOLINARI: I want to
welcome everybody, and thank
you for being here.
My name is Susan Molinari.
I'm Vice President of Public
Policy and Government Relations
here at Google.
I want to thank you so much
for joining us here today,
to listen to our speakers
Eric Weiner and Vint Cerf.
We're excited to be hosting
Eric, author of the "New York
Times" best seller, "The
Geography of Bliss,"
to discuss his
recent book, and soon
to be best seller, "The
Geography of Genius."
And speaking of genius, let me
welcome my dear friend Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand.
Thank you so much-- and her
husband Jonathan for being here
with us today.
Oh, you have got to give
applause for a United States
Senator from New York.
[APPLAUSE]
There you go.
Better.
Here in our DC
office, we are often
translators that help
explain Silicon Valley
to Washington, and vice versa.
So I'm looking forward
to hearing more from Eric
today about what he
uncovered during his time
in Silicon Valley,
and what he found
that it has in common with
certain places in time
and history from Athens,
to Vienna, to Calcutta.
Eric has reported on
more than 30 nations
as a longtime foreign
correspondent for NPR,
and also writes a regular
column for BBC travel.
And of course, I
do not think I need
to introduce Vint Cerf to
everyone in this audience.
I know Eric has some thoughts
about self-declared genius,
but it's perfectly
fine for me to let
you know that we have a true
creative genius on this stage
today.
Vint Cerf.
We're honored to call
Vint a colleague here,
as Vice President and Chief
Internet Evangelist of Google.
And as I often remind Vint,
that if it weren't for Vint,
none of us would be here today.
So we thank you for employing
all of us here at Google, Vint.
I'm looking forward to hearing
more about the questions Eric
grapples with in his book,
from why genius seems like such
a boys club, or why we shouldn't
be surprised that there are not
more modern day
Einstein's and Mozart's.
So without further delay, I
hand it over to you, Vint.
Thank you.
VINT CERF: Thank very,
very much, Susan.
Welcome everyone.
[APPLAUSE]
So Susan actually did
everything that I was going
to do, so thank you for that.
It just shows you the way
we all think very similarly
here at Google, so we can
substitute for each other.
Thank you very much for that.
Eric, first of all, thank you
very much for taking the time
to do this.
ERIC WEINER: It's my pleasure.
VINT CERF: Thank you for writing
a book that, I think, all of us
will find very interesting.
But I need to start
out with the question,
why did you write this book?
What motivated this?
ERIC WEINER: OK.
Unlike you, Vint,
I'm not a genius.
I want to be clear, because
that comes up often.
People want to know, you wrote
a book with the word genius
in the title, are you a genius?
I am not.
I have got a spouse, and
others who will vouch for that.
But this puts me in a
minority, because we
throw the word around a lot.
We have marketing geniuses,
and football geniuses,
and political geniuses.
But I felt that the word was
being devalued, and being
misunderstood.
That we focus so much on
either the genetics factor,
or the hard work that we've
been ignoring, the environment.
And I will confess that
I'm a place person.
There are dog people, and cat
people, and people people.
I'm a place person.
Seriously, I see the world
through the prism of place.
And by place, I
really mean culture.
And I think, so often we are
like the fish in a fish tank.
The water, the tank,
is the culture.
And we're unaware of it
because we've been born in it,
we've lived our
whole lives in it,
we've been swimming
around in it.
Now as a foreign
correspondent for NPR,
I was able to step out
of my own particular fish
tank for a decade, and dip
into other people's fish tanks.
Which is wonderful because
you can understand their tanks
better, and then when you
return to your own tank,
you're able to see it,
I think, more clearly.
And that's why
probably the greatest
book on American democracy was
written by Frenchman Alexis de
Tocqueville.
I believe place matters.
I believe culture matters.
And it struck me that,
gosh, it really matters
for one of the most important
things in our lives today,
which is creative genius.
It matters a lot.
And I wanted to explore that.
VINT CERF: So you chose a
particular collection of cities
to go to, and now
that you told us
the secret of your
interest, which
is place, why those places?
ERIC WEINER: OK.
Before we get to that, can I
clarify what I mean by genius?
VINT CERF: Yes.
ERIC WEINER: Because that trips
people up, and they wonder,
when they see the word
genius, do I mean a high IQ?
VINT CERF: What would
you have said, if I
had said no when you ask that?
I'm always curious about
that, when people say, may I?
And if you say, no,
what do they do?
Please go ahead Eric.
ERIC WEINER: I don't know
what I would have done.
VINT CERF: How should
we interpret genius?
Either generically, or maybe
in the context of your book?
ERIC WEINER: I'll tell
you what it's not.
It's not intelligence.
It's not IQ.
And so often, I think we
associate genius with someone
with a high IQ of 220,
a member of MENSA,
or know-it-all who has a
vast amount of knowledge.
The genius is not a
know-it-all, they're
much more of a see-it-all.
They see connections
that others don't.
So I'm talking about
creative genius.
Creating something that
others haven't, that
will affect people's lives.
And it's about making
a conceptual leap.
One of my favorite quotes
about the definition of genius
is from the German
philosopher Schopenhauer.
He said that talent hits a
target no one else can hit,
but genius hits a target
no one else can see.
VINT CERF: I like that.
ERIC WEINER: And I would
add that once you've
hit the target no
one else can see,
it's really important that
other people then see it.
Because otherwise,
you're just a nut job
hitting invisible targets.
And this is how it fits
into the theme of my book,
genius is a social verdict.
And I know this makes people
some people uncomfortable,
but it really is.
We get to decide
who are geniuses.
VINT CERF: Does
that mean that there
are people who might be geniuses
in one society, who would not
be considered
geniuses in another
because their genius
is not recognized?
ERIC WEINER: Yes.
In fact I argue that you cannot
separate the creative act from
the recognition of
the creative act.
They are tied.
VINT CERF: Let me challenge
you a little bit on the notion
of creative genius.
Because in some cases it's
not a matter of creation,
I think it's closer to
what you said before,
which is recognizing something
that others don't recognize.
I had the opportunity to meet
and chat with five Nobel Prize
winners over the past year.
In every single case,
this is really surprising,
this random sample of five
Nobel Prize winners in physics,
chemistry, and so on, and
in every single case they
saw something, they reported
it to their colleagues,
their colleagues
rejected their report
out of hand, couldn't happen,
wrong, instrument failure,
brain fart, whatever it was.
And it took, in
some cases, decades
before what they had seen
was recognized and accepted.
And in some cases
they literally had
to wait until new
technology came along
to see, or help others
see, what they had seen,
or what they had
intuitively discovered.
ERIC WEINER: And I would argue
that without that second part
of the equation,
the recognition,
you don't have a genius.
It's really a different
way of looking at it.
We think of geniuses
almost as shooting stars.
They appear in the night
sky every now and then,
we don't know when they'll come,
but when they do we go, ooh,
wow, it's beautiful.
I wonder when another
one will come along?
And I don't think
it works that way.
I think the better
metaphor is a garden, where
you need the seed, which
represents genetic talent.
You need the water
and the plowing,
which represents the hard work,
another important component
of genius.
But you need the right
soil, and the right climate,
and without that, you
don't have creative genius.
VINT CERF: So I
actually think that this
is indicative of why Silicon
Valley has been so successful.
Because the climate there, and
I don't mean just the weather,
is remarkably nurturing
of people with new ideas.
I've watched people
from India, who were not
very successful in India, come
to Silicon Valley and blossom,
because their ideas
have taken root.
And they've been able
to get sustenance
in order to pursue those ideas.
I want to go back
to your fishbowl
for a minute, because
I admit to you,
the first thing
I thought of when
you said you were swimming
around in your fish bowl,
was WC Fields.
When somebody asked him, do
you want a glass of water?
And he said no, I
never touch the stuff.
Then he went on to
explain why not,
and it had something to do with
fish, and their reproduction,
and so on.
What was it like going from
one fish bowl to another?
When you were in
India for almost,
what, 20 years, or more?
ERIC WEINER: I lived
there for a few years,
and I've been going back
and forth for 20 years.
It's helpful.
I think we should all go
into other fish bowls,
and return to our own fish bowl.
That was actually the most
enlightening part of it,
was coming back to the US
after 10 years overseas,
and everything that I had
taken for granted struck me.
And I almost went
into apoplectic shock
in the Whole Foods
bread department,
because just the amount
of choice and abundance
that was available.
I froze up.
And I needed an intervention.
And now, of course,
I'm used to it.
But those are
precious times, when
you're able to see a culture
freshly for the first time.
VINT CERF: I want to take
you to the beginning.
This is on page one.
If you happen to have the
book, you can follow along.
I want to read these
two paragraphs.
ERIC WEINER: Ooh.
OK.
VINT CERF: Because you
were trying to explain
where this book came from.
He said, "people began to
recognize my specialness when
I was young.
As a 10-year-old, curious
about the laws of physics,
I wondered what would happen
if I tossed a large water
balloon off the balcony of my
father's 15th floor apartment?
So following in the footsteps
of Newton and Darwin
and great scientists
everywhere, I
decided to conduct
an experiment.
'Way to go, Einstein,' said
the clearly impressed owner
of the car, whose windshield
had been thoroughly shattered
by the surprising blast
force of the water balloon.
Who knew?
Such is the cost of
scientific progress,
I rationalized that the time.
Another incident years
later involved a fireplace,
a closed flue, and the
local fire department.
I can still hear the
firefighters words,
'what are you, some sort of
genius?'" So that's the real
gestation of this thing.
It's the water balloon.
ERIC WEINER: Thank you
for sharing that with--
VINT CERF: You're welcome.
ERIC WEINER: --everyone here.
VINT CERF: Hey, you shared
it on the first page.
ERIC WEINER: I know.
You're right.
Yeah.
I only know one
historical character
who ever declared
themselves a genius,
and that was Gertrude Stein.
A woman who said, "I am genius."
Most people do not, which I
think is largely a good thing.
Because I really argue
in this book that
humility, and actually,
ignorance, which I displayed,
I think, mightily in
that section there.
Ignorance is really essential
to the creative process.
And I think all creative
people in places
always have a degree of,
what one poet described
as "shiny ignorance."
And I love that phrase.
Shiny ignorance.
VINT CERF: Well it's certainly--
ERIC WEINER: It's
helpful, right?
VINT CERF: I don't know
about the rest of you,
but the longer I live, the more
I realized how little I know,
and the older I get,
the lesser I know,
until finally I know practically
nothing about anything.
I want to turn to page
three for a minute,
and that's the Galton Box, at
University College, London.
A place of personal
interest to me
because I worked with one
of the professors there,
Peter Kirstein, for
many, many years now,
but what was the
Galton Box all about?
ERIC WEINER: It is the worldly
possessions of one Sir Francis
Galton.
VINT CERF: OK.
ERIC WEINER: 19th century
elite British scientist.
He brought us the phrase,
nature versus nurture.
He was the first one to use
forensics fingerprinting.
He was one of the
first meteorologists.
He had an IQ,
supposedly, of 200.
And he was an odd bird.
Even odder than most
British people--
[LAUGHS]
--to be honest.
He was a numbers person.
He wanted to measure things.
Before he can
explain something, he
said he had to disembarrass
it of words first.
So one of the weirdest
things that Galton did
was, he wanted to create
a beauty map of the United
Kingdom.
But he was too shy to
actually look at women,
or hold a beauty contest, which
wasn't really done back then,
so he stuck some felt into
his pocket, and had some pins,
and traveled all over the UK.
And if he saw an attractive
woman, in his opinion,
he put four pins in the
felt. Less attractive, three.
Then two, then one.
VINT CERF: I thought he was
going to stick them with it.
ERIC WEINER: No.
He concluded, the
most attractive women
were in London, and
the least attractive
in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Probably not accounting for the
difference in population size.
So he wasn't perfect, but the
reason that we care about him,
that I care about
him, is that he
wrote a book in 1860-something,
called "Hereditary Genius."
And this really solidified
in many people's minds,
and affects us to this day,
this notion that genius
is born, that it's innate.
It must be genetic.
You see someone like Mozart
playing the piano at age 3,
and composing at age
7 and 8, and we think,
well, it's got to be genetic.
He was writing in
the 19th century,
he had some unfortunate,
well, chapters.
He had a chapter called The
Comparative Worth of Races.
And women only appeared
briefly in his book,
in a chapter entitled
Literary Men.
He was a creature
of his time, but he
was the first to really study
creativity scientifically.
And the first always
never gets it right.
As Steve Jobs said of the light
bulb, when Edison invented it,
no one complained that
the wattage was too low.
And so it was with Galton.
And so we've been trying to
study creativity ever since.
There is a thriving
field of creatologists,
they call themselves.
VINT CERF: Oh my god.
ERIC WEINER: Science of genius.
Mainly psychologists,
but also economists,
trying to figure out not
only what kind of people
are the most creative, but
really what interests me,
where does creativity
take place?
There's a field called
historiometrics,
which uses statistical
analysis to look at this.
VINT CERF: That was
the next question
I was going to ask,
so thank you for that.
Historiometrics sounds
a lot like Hari Seldon
in the Foundation
series, by Isaac Asimov.
Seldon had this idea
called psychohistory.
ERIC WEINER: Yeah.
VINT CERF: And he
thought that you
could analyze great swaths of
behavior across the galaxy,
and make predictions
about how things work.
Is that what historiometrics--
ERIC WEINER:
Historiometrics will
look back at these
golden ages and find
ways of measuring eminence.
Who was great?
And then, what were the
conditions at the time?
Just one example
was Dean Simonton,
professor at University
of California, Davis,
looked at Japan
over a long period.
From about 500 AD to 1940.
VINT CERF: Wow.
ERIC WEINER: Just
before World War II.
And he compared two variables.
He compared the amount of
extracultural influx, which
sounds like something you may
need to go to the emergency
room for, but in fact--
VINT CERF: Either that
or Montezuma's revenge.
ERIC WEINER: --it is openness
to experience, essentially.
Its openness in
terms of immigration.
In terms of student exchanges.
In every sense of the word.
And he compared
that one variable,
extracultural influence,
on the one hand,
and Japanese achievement
in the arts and sciences
on the other hand.
And he found a
direct correlation.
It was interesting for Japan,
because traditionally it's
a very closed
society, but it's had
these moments of opening up.
And the more open Japan was
to this extracultural influx,
the more to achieved.
In all kinds of fields, not just
the arts, but also in science.
And it's interesting that it's
partly allowing immigrants in.
And immigrants are more likely
to become creative geniuses.
But I also think there's
something else going on.
I think that there's a
creativity contagion,
once you open up
yourself to, what I call,
the possibility of possibility.
Say you've only eaten
with a fork and knife.
You don't believe there's any
other way to eat your food.
And here comes someone from
China eating with chopsticks,
or someone from South India
eating with their hands.
Now chances are,
you are not going
to just start using
chopsticks all the time,
or eating with your hands.
But you have been opened up to
the possibility of possibility.
And you may think,
well if there's
a different way
of eating my food,
maybe there's a different way
of constructing a building,
or coding, or thinking
about whatever.
And I think that's
the main reason
we see that relationship.
VINT CERF: So you have
something on page 25,
for those of you
following along,
it says the expectation
of a reward or evaluation,
even a positive evaluation,
squelched creativity.
ERIC WEINER: In the laboratory.
VINT CERF: I'm sorry, Teresa--
ERIC WEINER: Amabile.
VINT CERF: Amabile.
She says it's intrinsic
theory of motivation.
People will be
most creative when
they feel motivated primarily
by interest, enjoyment,
satisfaction, and challenge
of the work itself,
not by external pressures.
And I thought that was a
very interesting observation.
ERIC WEINER: And it gave me
a headache, to be honest.
Because it was one
of the few cases,
actually, where I saw a
direct conflict between what
psychologists are
finding in the lab,
and what the real
world tells us.
So in the lab, exactly.
Teresa Amabile at Harvard,
and her colleagues,
would do an experiment
where, typically they
would take two groups of
starving undergrads who need
the extra money, let's face it.
VINT CERF: I remember that.
ERIC WEINER: These
are the people
who are used in these
experiments, but fine.
And they were both told
to build a collage.
And one group was
given material,
and said build a collage.
You'll be judged on the collage.
The results will be made public.
If you do a really
good job, you will
receive $150, which is
a lot for an undergrad.
The other group was told build
the collage, and just have fun.
I should add that they didn't
have any artistic experience.
And it was the second
group that was told just
to have fun that did better.
Now where this conflicts
with the real world
is that looking historically,
a lot of these golden ages,
and at Silicon
Valley today, these
are competitive places, right?
VINT CERF: Yes.
ERIC WEINER: In Florence,
Michelangelo and Leonardo
hated each other.
It's just one example,
how to square that circle.
VINT CERF: Was that competition,
or was that something else?
No Not to go down
this little alley,
here, they just didn't
like each other?
Or they thought each
other's work was terrible?
ERIC WEINER: They didn't like
each other, and they competed.
And Silicon Valley
is competitive,
and Athens was competitive
in its own way.
And you see athletes
that perform better
on the day of the race
than they do in training.
I found one study that I
think does square the circle.
It was a study of
musicians, but these
were experienced musicians.
These people had at least
five, 10 years experience.
And they were told to improvise.
Jazz improvisation.
Again, one group given
intrinsic motivation, just
have fun, and the other group
extrinsic motivation, money,
reward, recognition.
And in this case it was the
second group that did better.
And I think the difference
is, when you're beginning
in a creative task or a skill.
Playing a musical instrument,
coding, whatever it is.
I don't think competition helps.
I think it stymies you.
But I think once you've achieved
a certain degree of mastery,
that competition
can raise your game.
That's my take on it.
VINT CERF: There is another
comment that's on page 28,
basically saying paradise
is antithetical to genius.
And the reason is, it
makes no demands on us.
In paradise, you just
relax and enjoy yourself.
And I remember in high school,
writing my valedictory comments
called, "In Praise
of Discontent,"
and I remember thinking, nothing
happens unless somebody is not
satisfied.
And so it feels to
me like there may
be an element of
that hiding in here.
ERIC WEINER: Were you a
curmudgeon, even back then?
VINT CERF: I didn't think of
this as being curmudgeonly.
ERIC WEINER: No?
VINT CERF: I didn't
want everybody
to be unhappy all
the time, I wanted
them to be just unhappy enough
that something would change.
ERIC WEINER: You know I
once, during my first book
"The Geography of Bliss,"
I met an Icelandic composer
named Hilmar.
And he was very talented.
And he also seemed happy.
And this was confusing
me, because I think of--
VINT CERF: Artists are
suppose to be in pain.
ERIC WEINER: I said that to him.
I said, Hilmar, what gives?
You look happy, but you're
a successful composer.
You were a mentor to Bjork.
And he said something
to me I'll never forget.
He said, well I am
basically happy,
but I cherish my melancholia.
Which I think is good.
We all need to have
that part of us.
But you're absolutely
right, and I
would like to withdraw the
curmudgeon common, please.
VINT CERF: Oh
that's perfectly OK.
I'll get even with you later.
And
ERIC WEINER: All right.
Now wait, I have a
point here, and that
is that paradise would be
the least creative place.
That creativity is always
a response to a challenge,
and that we, in
fact, thrive when
presented with constraints.
Robert Frost once said that
writing free verse poetry
would be like playing
tennis without a net.
And we need the net.
And I think the problem is,
we forget that sometimes.
VINT CERF: That's very Japanese.
Those of you who have studied
ikebana, like Sigmund has,
will tell you that the
reason it's interesting
is, that there are very
tight constraints on what
you're allowed to
do, and you have
to be creative within those
constraints, just like haiku.
And so sometimes constraints
are exactly the thing
that generate creativity.
ERIC WEINER: Yes.
VINT CERF: So I have another--
ERIC WEINER: Sure.
VINT CERF: Here's
an observation which
I resonated with
tremendously, it's on page 39.
It says the results
were published
in the journal "Consciousness
and Cognition,"
and they are enough to
make you reach for a drink.
The sober men took, on average,
15.4 seconds to come up
with a creative response.
But the vodka drinkers
needed only 11.5 seconds.
[LAUGHS]
I don't drink vodka, but
I drink a lot of wine.
So somehow, that
made me feel like it
was an important
component of creativity.
ERIC WEINER: A little bit of
alcohol makes us more creative.
And it's been shown
in the studies.
A lot of alcohol makes us
fall down, which is not good.
But this inhibition is important
for creativity, seriously.
VINT CERF: Ah.
Good point.
ERIC WEINER: And
there's something called
the disinhibition hypothesis.
These psychologists have
fancy names for everything.
But you can disinhibit
yourself in many ways,
and one way is with a
little bit of vodka.
Another way is by
going for a walk,
or actually being in the
right acoustic atmosphere.
VINT CERF: I'm sorry,
in the right atmosphere?
ERIC WEINER: Yes.
So the ideal acoustic
setting, according
to a study out of the
University of Illinois,
is not complete silence.
We don't do our best
thinking in a quiet room,
in complete silence.
Nor do we do our best
thinking in a very loud room
with rock music or
construction noise.
70 decibels is ideal.
And that happens
to be pretty much
the sound level you'd find
in a Starbucks, or a coffee
shop like that.
It's called the
Starbucks effect.
And I think the reason is
that we defocus our attention
in a situation like that.
And creativity is not
about furrowing your brow
and honing in on the problem,
and gritting your teeth
until you get it done.
It's about defocusing.
Eventually you will
need to grit your teeth
to get it done on a deadline,
but that comes later.
The first stage is to defocus.
VINT CERF: I think that this may
have an age-related component
to it, though.
Because I remember at Xerox
PARC, back in the '70s,
there was enormous
creativity that
was generated, in
part, by bean bags
and white boards on the walls.
And I noticed over
time that fewer of us
were able to get back
out of the bean bag.
We were very
distracted by trying
to get out of the bean bag, and
we couldn't be very creative.
ERIC WEINER: It was too
much to push against.
VINT CERF: Now this
one, on page 56,
really grabbed my attention.
This is Diogenes,
and you describe him
as "a guy who lived
in a wine barrel,
and regularly ridiculed the
famous and the powerful.
And after Aristotle
described man
as a rational animal, a
kind of featherless bird,
Diogenes plucked a chicken and
tossed it over a wall yelling,
'heads up!
Here comes a true man.'" So
Diogenes and the naked chicken.
I think that should be the
title of your next book.
ERIC WEINER: Oh that's good.
Yeah, he was an oddball.
And he was tolerated in Athens.
And tolerating your
eccentrics is important.
Adam Smith in Scotland talked
to himself walking down
the street.
He really did.
VINT CERF: Sounds like San
Francisco, Market Street,
doesn't it?
[LAUGHS]
ERIC WEINER: You need to
tolerate your eccentrics,
but you also need
to know when to stop
listening to them as well.
I'll just give you an
example from Vienna.
Freud thought he was
going crazy sometimes,
because he was in
uncharted territory.
He called himself
a conquistador,
and he needed a
fellow conquistador.
And for him, that was a fellow
doctor named Wilhelm Fliess.
Now at the time they were both
Jewish doctors, in Austria,
with strange ideas.
Freud had this idea
about the unconscious,
and Wilhelm Fliess had these
strange ideas about the nose.
He thought the nose was
the most important organ.
He thought, and I'm not making
this up, it was a sexual organ.
And he believed--
VINT CERF: Well, dogs
would tell you it is.
ERIC WEINER: All our
problems, including sexual,
could be cured if you performed
this surgery on your nose.
And he performed
surgery on Freud's nose,
and many other people.
AUDIENCE: Oh my gosh.
ERIC WEINER: Yeah, it's true.
But at some point, Freud
realized, this guy is nuts.
And he broke off
their friendship.
And then he formed something
called the Wednesday Circle,
which is a group of less
crazy, but still conquistadors
who got together on Wednesdays.
But the genius, when they're
out there on their own,
they need some validation,
reassurance really,
that they're not nuts.
And sometimes you need
a fellow maverick.
VINT CERF: This leads
us to two other things.
On page 69 at the bottom, you
make this very interesting
comment. "Places of genius
require a degree of uncertainty
and perhaps even chaos."
And there's a current
expression called,
opportunity lies on
the edge of chaos.
And I'm just wondering if you
could elaborate a bit more
on the chaotic theory of genius.
ERIC WEINER: OK.
And there's a lot of
interest between chaos theory
and genius, actually, because
there is a connection.
There's a connection
on the societal level
that all these places I
look at, these golden ages,
shortly before they
experience their golden age,
underwent some sort of upheaval.
In Athens, it was the city
being sacked by the Persians
before Pericles
rebuilds it grander
than ever, builds the Acropolis
that we still admire today.
And in Florence, just
before the Renaissance,
maybe just two
generations, the city
is decimated by the Black
Death, the bubonic plague.
It's terrible.
I don't lie about that.
30% of the population
is wiped out.
But that actually had an
effect of loosening up
the rigid social structure.
VINT CERF: This sounds like
forest fires, in a way,
we've been told that we all
run around trying to put out
the forest fires, and
now the forestry people
are saying don't do that.
That's part of the normal
process of renewal.
Kind of like the Phoenix.
ERIC WEINER: Yeah and you
often see that beforehand.
Because you need a stirring
of the pot, a kind of chaos.
And on the personal,
neural-level actually,
there's a neuroscientist
named Walter Freeman, who
studied rabbits
brains, and hooked them
up to EEG's, and then
introduced them to odors.
And some of the
odors were familiar,
and some were unfamiliar.
And when the rabbits
were introduced
to an unfamiliar odor,
their EEG activity
entered a chaotic
state, which Freeman
called an "I don't know" state.
And that resonated with me,
because I think we, personally,
do need to reach
an "I don't know"
state, which is often chaotic.
If there's an old order, and
a new order, what's in between
is chaos.
I don't think you want to
live in chaos, necessarily,
but you need to at least
transition through it.
VINT CERF: Some of you will
remember Ian Bremmer, who
came to talk to us
about his latest book,
but one of his earlier ones
was called "The J Curve,"
and there is something
very similar about what
he said about societies
that are authoritarian,
that try to move to a
more democratic state,
go through a period of chaos.
And if their economic
condition is too low
when they start the
transition, they
will not make it
all the way over.
Either they will go
back to authoritarian,
or they will disintegrate into
total chaos and not recover.
ERIC WEINER: Yeah.
VINT CERF: You have
something else in here,
that you were speaking
about, the Song dynasty,
and you talk about group genius.
Can you tell us a little
more about what that means?
ERIC WEINER: The West does not
have a monopoly on creativity,
and on genius, so I made a point
of going to Hangzhou, China.
Which, during the
12th and 13th century
was the capital of
the Song dynasty,
and it was an amazing place.
City of a million people, while
the largest city in Europe
was 50,000.
And while the Europeans are
picking lice out of their hair,
wondering when the Middle
Ages would ever end,
the Chinese are inventing the
compass, and toilet paper,
and wood block printing, and
creating great art and poetry,
and are ruled by poet-emperors.
Which is a great hyphenation.
They were actual poets
who ruled the land.
We don't have so many
poet politicians today.
It was a top-down.
China's always been top-down.
But the top, then, was not
authoritarian, it was poetic.
And the Chinese
approach creativity
from a more com-- the way
they do everything, frankly,
from a more communal
point of view.
And if the three
elements for creativity
are: it has to be new,
surprising, and useful,
and I believe that's
true, we in the West
focus on the novelty, and
the surprise/shock effect
of some invention, creation.
And the Chinese focus much
more the usefulness of it.
Is it useful to everyone?
That's the group part.
And a lot of the great
Chinese inventors of the day
remain anonymous.
We're not so big on
anonymity in the West.
We need to attach the
genius to a person.
We have a myth of
the lone genius,
and it's a very powerful myth.
It's sometimes useful,
sometimes destructive.
But if you have a Steve
Wozniak and a Steve Jobs,
one generally will get
most of the credit.
We don't get too excited
about group genius,
because, to us it's
not as romantic.
But I think it's real
and it's powerful.
VINT CERF: Some of
you will have been
here when Walter
Isaacson was talking
his book "The Innovators."
He focused strongly on
this pairing of talent.
Of this creative tension and
this friction, out of which
came innovation.
So at least there's one
argument that Walter makes,
that this myth of
the lone genius,
in fact, can be refuted.
Although I think you're right.
Our society seems to
want to point to somebody
and say that person did X.
ERIC WEINER: It can be useful.
It motivates us.
VINT CERF: Exactly.
If he can do it,
then I can do it.
ERIC WEINER: Exactly.
VINT CERF: Now, you did
mention something else.
There's a famous
Chinese expression,
the first bird to fly is
the one that gets shot.
Which suggests that there's--
ERIC WEINER: Doesn't
that make you want
to go out and do a startup?
VINT CERF: So that has a way
of suppressing creativity.
In spite of that, Jack
Ma, who founded Alibaba,
seems to have done pretty well.
But in the book,
you say that he was
worried that Chinese creativity
was squelched by exams.
That people were forced
to memorize lots of stuff.
And the consequence of
that was they weren't free.
They weren't in
that relaxed state
that you mentioned, to invent.
Have you taken away
something from the time
you spent in China?
Understanding what they are--
ERIC WEINER: Where it is today?
Yeah.
There's a lot of hand-wringing,
obviously, about what they
call the innovation gap.
And I'm watching a
program on this, on CCTV.
It's thankfully in English.
It's a panel
discussion about, what
are we going to do about
the innovation gap?
And I'm not making this
up, one of the panelists
says, the government
needs to get involved,
and have a government
innovation program.
And they need to create an
innovation infrastructure
the way they created
a high speed rail
network, and highways, and just
one step away from suggesting
the government should
regulate spontaneity.
It was just shy of that,
but everyone on the panel
is harrumphing in agreement.
And that is clearly a problem.
The complaint in China is,
everything is made there,
but nothing's invented there.
Now Jack Ma is an
outlier in that sense.
But the interesting
story about Jack Ma
is that, I think he's a hybrid
American-Chinese success story.
He came of age just when China
was opening up to the west,
and he would hang out at the
Shangri-La Hotel in Hangzhou,
where he grew up.
And he didn't speak any English.
And he would
exchange his services
as a tour guide for
free English lessons
from the American
or Western visitors.
And that's how he
learned English.
VINT CERF: Clever.
ERIC WEINER: And I can't help
but think that some of our fish
tank spilled into his, to use
that analogy, that he picked up
some of that American
gumption, but still operating
in a very Chinese system.
VINT CERF: I'm going to
argue that, in fact, language
has a great deal to
do with creativity--
ERIC WEINER: I agree.
VINT CERF: --and culture.
And I don't mean that in
a trivial sense at all.
When I was living in
Germany, I remember
deciding to read all the
children's stories in German,
to find out what German
children grow up with.
And it's very scary stuff.
You know people's fingers
are being cut off,
and blood is going everywhere.
And I thought, my god, if
that's the German childhood,
this explains something about
the culture of the country.
I have to share this
with you because I
thought this was one of the
funniest parts of the book.
This is on page 101.
He's meeting with
this guy named Eugene.
You're in Italy, in Florence.
And he says, "during our
conversation at the cafe,
I kept tripping over all
those slippery Italian names.
So Eugene anglicizes
them for me.
Michelangelo becomes Mike.
Leonardo da Vinci becomes Leo.
Lorenzo Ghiberti becomes Larry.
And Filippo Brunelleschi
becomes Phil.
At first this strikes me as
sacrilege, these lofty geniuses
from the heavens, and brings
them back down to earth
where they belong.
This is like
calling Moses, Moe."
I just was so taken
by that paragraph.
But this business about
bringing the geniuses down to--
ERIC WEINER: Yeah.
VINT CERF: --earth.
What's that all about?
ERIC WEINER: We elevate
them on pedestals.
And we think that they
are different from us.
I really do believe
that geniuses
are the secular world's gods.
Is it OK to talk
about Steve Jobs here?
That's OK, right?
VINT CERF: OK.
Go ahead.
ERIC WEINER: OK.
Fine.
I just didn't know what
the ground rules were.
You look, especially
because he died,
so his passing, and the
adulation, and the mourning.
To me, it took on a
religious character.
And it dawned on me
that these are our gods.
And the gods, of course,
are up on Mount Olympus,
and we can't be like them, and
we can't really reach them.
And by putting them up on a
pedestal, we reduce ourselves
and in a way, I think
we actually reduce them.
VINT CERF: Oh, that's an
interesting [INAUDIBLE].
ERIC WEINER: And
Eugene was great.
He's an art historian, with a
dog, who really knew his stuff.
But he wasn't all caught up
in the academic language.
He was able to speak
clearly, and plainly,
about what was the
beauty of the art,
and where it came
from, which was really
what I was interested in.
So I think we need to get the
genius off their pedestal.
Because it is a continuum, and
we're all on there somewhere.
VINT CERF: I want you to
have a chance to chat, too.
And ask questions,
and raise issues,
but I do want to offer
two other things to draw
your attention to why this
book is so interesting,
and that's vocabulary.
So there are two words that
I had never heard of before.
One of them is called
flyting, F-L-Y-T-I-N-G.
ERIC WEINER: Oh, I love that.
VINT CERF: This, you said,
was ritual humiliation
by verbal violence.
ERIC WEINER: Ritual
humiliation of your opponent--
VINT CERF: Of your opponent.
ERIC WEINER: --by
verbal violence.
Yes.
VINT CERF: OK.
Where they heck?
Does that have an
etymology, or something?
Where does it come from?
ERIC WEINER: F-L-Y-T-I-N-G.
It's the Scots.
It's a Scottish, Scots word.
It's the Scots language.
Is an old Scots word.
And I was sitting with a
historian, Scottish historian,
in Edinburgh named Tom Devine,
and told me about flyting.
And he got all
excited about this.
I'm like, what does it mean?
He's like, oh it's
ritual humiliation
of your opponent
through verbal violence.
And he was, like, salivating.
I'm like, well Tom,
it sounds brutal.
And he's like, oh it is.
And we can conclude
a couple things.
We can conclude that they're
just sadistic, the Scots,
but they're not.
Because here is
the key to flyting,
which is really the idea
of a completely open-ended,
honest conversation.
Which doesn't always
happen in this town,
let's be honest about that.
But where you just
speak your mind,
and you're not worried about
offending the other person.
But the key to a successful
flyting exercise is afterwards,
you head down to the local
pub for a pint or five,
and there are no hard feelings.
VINT CERF: OK.
ERIC WEINER: And I think
Washington used to be that way,
is what I'm told.
VINT CERF: Well the
attorneys are still that way,
as near as I can tell.
Now you introduced another
word, which I had trouble with.
It was shilpit.
And I misread it a
few times, actually.
S-H-I-L-P-I-T. What's that?
ERIC WEINER: It's a Scots
word that means dark, dreary,
not a very well-dressed person.
The opposite of you.
VINT CERF: Oh, OK.
ERIC WEINER: But
you didn't mention
my favorite word, sprezzatura.
VINT CERF: Oh, I missed that.
What's that all about?
Is that an Italian--
ERIC WEINER: Oh yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
So the key to Italian
genius is sprezzatura,
which means literally, a
squirt of something extra.
VINT CERF: Oh, OK.
I thought it was a kind
of pasta, or something.
ERIC WEINER: No
it's not a pasta.
It's that squirt
of something extra.
And that's often what
separates a work of genius
from just something that's good.
It's that squirt
of something extra.
And it's not always a
mile, it's sometimes
just a few inches that squirt.
But it explains a lot.
And I think that one of the
keys to creative genius,
and creative places,
is having people
who are very good at not
only having sprezzatura,
but recognizing sprezzatura.
There's a great
story from Florence.
The Medici's were in charge.
They were the de-facto rulers.
They were wildly wealthy, and
they are great talent scouts.
So one day Lorenzo Medici, AKA
Lorenzo the Magnificent, as he
called himself,
and I guess others
did, because he was in charge.
He's walking outside
the palace grounds
and he spots a
young stone cutter
working on a statue
of Faun, a Roman god.
And he says, kid you're good.
You've got talent.
There's something you're
doing right there.
Why don't you come live with me?
Live in my house and I'll
give you the best teachers.
I will challenge you.
And I think he recognized
the sprezzatura
in that 14-year-old kid, who now
is best known as Michelangelo.
VINT CERF: Wow.
ERIC WEINER: It's
the recognition part,
that I think is
hugely important.
And I think we've
given it short shrift.
I think we're all code
geniuses, in a way.
I think Mozart needed
the audience of Vienna.
They were a demanding audience.
They were an
appreciative audience.
And he worked for commissions.
And I think that that's
hugely important.
VINT CERF: Well there's
certainly a feedback loop,
there.
If you try to do
stand up, if you
don't get any positive
feedback, it's really tough.
Well speaking of feedback--
ERIC WEINER: You
say you're dying.
I'm dying out here, right?
VINT CERF: What
kind of feedback do
we have from our
assembled crowd, here?
If you have an idea.
Do we have a microphone
that rolls around?
Here it comes.
Flying in the air, we have one.
ERIC WEINER: Senator.
VINT CERF: Oh, OK, let's take
Senator Gillibrand first.
We'll go one, two,
and three, here.
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:
I have a theory
about closing your
problem with the two
outcomes in your early studies.
ERIC WEINER: OK.
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: So you say
inhibition squashes creativity.
ERIC WEINER: Right.
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:
Fear of failure
is very present for
someone who is not very
good at what they're doing.
So when you tell the
group, just have fun,
there's no fear of failure.
If you say only the winner
is going to get $150,
then you fear that
you're going to lose.
But when you're
talking about experts,
people who are very good, they
have less of a fear of failure.
They've competed
their whole life.
They can perform on
the highest level.
So that maybe the reconciliation
between your different studies
outcomes.
ERIC WEINER: I like that.
Can I use that?
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Yes.
ERIC WEINER: Thank you.
And I think it goes to--
most geniuses are prolific.
They produce more
than others, and they
produce a lot of bad stuff.
Picasso has 20,000 works
of art to his name,
and not all are
masterpieces by a long shot.
No fear of failure
there at some point.
AUDIENCE: Briefly, you
touched on language,
and I was hoping you
could elaborate on
your point earlier,
that immigrants are more
likely to be creative geniuses?
ERIC WEINER: Yeah.
There's a long list of
immigrants and refugees
who went on to become
creative geniuses.
Einstein is the best example.
Also Freud, Marie
Curie, and others.
And the question is, why?
And the traditional explanation
is that they're hungry, right?
They work, sometimes literally,
they work harder than others.
They often have a supportive
family in their endeavors.
And that might explain
their success, but not
necessarily their creativity.
So if you bear with
me for a second,
I think the answer lies in
something called a schema
violation, S-C-H-E-M-A, and that
is a fancy psychological term
for when your world
is turned upside down.
If you eat pancakes for dinner,
or do things in reverse order,
or wear your underwear
on the outside, whatever,
you're involved in
a schema violation.
And in the lab, they have found
that people who either engage
in these schema violations,
or watch others do it,
are then more creative.
And if you think about
the immigrants life,
what is it but, one
giant schema violation.
Everything is
off-kilter for them.
They're off-kilter.
But I think the key
is, the immigrants have
to be accepted enough
to be outsiders,
but inside enough so that
their ideas resonate.
VINT CERF: So I had a very
interesting discussion
with some senior
people in Europe.
We were talking
about creativity.
And we were wondering
about the risk aversion,
which is rampant in Europe.
And in the course
of the conversation
I was thinking, but
think of all those people
who immigrated to
the United States,
and were incredibly
creative, and successful,
and everything else.
And then we finally put
two and two together
and realized that
what happened is,
all the people with the
genes for risk taking
moved to the United
States, and the ones
that didn't have any genes for
risk taking stayed in Europe,
and then they propagated
in both directions.
And so that explains
a great deal
of the difference
in the two cultures.
We have a question over, where?
You have a microphone?
AUDIENCE: Right here.
So the first seven chapters
you have in the book
were about places from
the past that had--
ERIC WEINER: Correct.
AUDIENCE: --genius.
And obviously the eighth
chapter is about Silicon Valley,
which is still ongoing.
What do you see from your
visits out there, and looking
at the previous seven examples,
are the threats to having
it end in Silicon Valley?
That period of genius.
Is there something, one,
or two, three, things
that you see are early
indicators that something's
going wrong?
ERIC WEINER: That's
a very good question.
First of all, the
idea of it ending
is not out of the question,
because these golden ages
tend to last a few decades,
maybe half a century, maybe
a century at the outside.
Rarely did they
see the end coming.
I don't think anyone in Detroit
in the '30s, '40s, and '50s,
saw the end coming.
I think the biggest threat
can be summed up in one word,
and that's arrogance.
I think if you become
arrogant, you lack ignorance.
You lack that humility.
Which is, the humility of,
there's things I don't know.
I think staying in one industry,
and being a one note town,
albeit one that plays in
different keys, is dangerous.
All these other places I
looked at, historically,
were pretty much,
with the exception
of Vienna in the 1700s with
music, were interdisciplinary.
There was a lot going on.
And not only does that
diversify, spread out the risk,
it also is more likely to have
different fields sparking off
one another.
Often a breakthrough
in one field like art,
might lead to completely
a breakthrough
in a completely unrelated field
like science, or technology.
So I'm concerned
about arrogance,
and I see some
signs of bling out
there I hadn't seen
10 years ago, always
the canary in the coal mine.
And I'm concerned about
the specialization.
Pixar is probably
the best example
of combining Hollywood
and Silicon Valley.
I would say those are
my two big concerns.
But my theory on Silicon
Valley is that it has nothing
to do with technology, really.
The product is
technology, of course,
but the process is
a creative ecology
that's very good at
recognizing good ideas.
Not really inventing
them, the cell phone,
correct me if I'm wrong, was
not invented in Silicon Valley.
And I even think venture
capital came from New York.
But they're good at--
ideas aren't born there,
they come of age there.
If they remain good at that,
and good at importing ideas,
they can stay fresh for
a little while, I think.
VINT CERF: I would also
argue, Silicon Valley does
have the advantage of
this constant source,
an influx of really
well-trained people
coming out of
Stanford, Berkeley,
and some of the other schools.
And this is continuous,
refreshing--
ERIC WEINER: Fluidity.
AUDIENCE: Yeah,
that's important.
VINT CERF: Mike
Nelson over here,
and then we'll get
some-- who else had it?
Over there.
OK.
So Mike first, then number two.
MIKE NELSON: Mike Nelson.
I work for CloudFlare, which
is a Silicon Valley-based web
company, but I also teach
innovation and internet studies
at Georgetown.
On your first page, you talk
about all different types
of geniuses.
Fashion geniuses--
ERIC WEINER: Right.
MIKE NELSON: --musical
geniuses, artistic geniuses,
and political geniuses.
And I was hoping that you'd talk
a little bit about government
geniuses.
People who really made
government work better.
The rest of the book
talks about politics,
and how the
political environment
can spur the other
type of genius,
but I was wondering
if you've thought
about doing a couple
more chapters,
and going in search
of places where
a lot of very smart people got
together and created a better
form of politics.
ERIC WEINER: Boy that's--
I should've been prepared
for that question in
Washington, right?
Is there-- I'm going
to bounce it back
to you a little bit,
is there such a thing
as political genius, really?
MIKE NELSON: Well I
think Philadelphia--
ERIC WEINER: Or did it
just leave the room?
It just left the room.
MIKE NELSON: Phila--
Yeah, that's right.
Philadelphia 1776
would be a place
to go look, and maybe Athens.
They clearly were developing
new political structures.
ERIC WEINER: Yeah.
MIKE NELSON: I think
we're ready for something
really radical and new.
If somebody can harness the--
ERIC WEINER: And you're not
just talking about leadership,
right?
MIKE NELSON: No, I'm
talking about structures.
ERIC WEINER: Winston
Churchill, and that.
Changing the structure.
MIKE NELSON: Yeah.
And as I say, we're
probably at a point
right now where
that could happen.
VINT CERF: So if I could
interject an observation.
Sigmund and I were up at
the state house in Maryland,
this morning.
And this state
house was the site
at which George Washington
resigned his commission
on December 23rd, 1783.
And he could have not done that.
And if you were looking for
an active political genius,
although he may or may not
have recognized it as such,
it was transformative.
Because it was the first time a
successful general essentially
relinquished all
power, as opposed
to becoming the King,
or the President,
or a despot of some kind.
So if you were looking for a
kernel of example, that's one.
What about the
other side, though?
There must be a great
book on political idiocy,
but that would take a very--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
ERIC WEINER: I guess the problem
is that, frankly, the word
politics has been
diminished over the years,
I think that's fair to say.
And so you're really talking
about a government genius.
You're talking about someone
who, essentially, invents
a new way of organizing
society, that's
incredibly smart,
useful, surprising,
leads to flourishing,
and in my mind,
I've never separated that
out as a separate kind
of creative act.
But maybe you're right.
I have to be honest, I've not
given that a lot of thought.
Don't devote a lot of
time to it in the book.
VINT CERF: So Mike
stumps the author.
MIKE NELSON: We have scared
99.99% of the geniuses out
of the political process.
ERIC WEINER: Yeah.
I would say it's exactly
1776, or it's Athens.
It's not leadership, per se,
which requires its own skill
set, but it's inventing
a new form of government.
It's that break, and
I think it qualifies.
VINT CERF: OK.
We have a question over there.
AUDIENCE: So I had that
last question in mind.
But let me ask
you the question I
had related to it, which is,
you list a number of geographies
in your book.
But I'm just curious,
what fell out?
What almost made it,
that you didn't put in?
ERIC WEINER: OK.
There were two places.
First of all, I should
say that my favorite quote
about writing, is that a piece
of writing is never finished,
it's only abandoned.
So everything is incomplete.
I had hoped to include a chapter
on the Muslim and Arab golden
ages.
And the real center for that was
Baghdad, between 800-1000 AD,
in a place called
the House of Wisdom.
Or possibly Damascus.
And I'll be perfectly
honest, even though I'm
a former foreign correspondent
and war correspondent,
I did not want my
obituary to read
"Author dies while
researching a book on genius."
It's not safe to go
to Baghdad, and that's
what I do in my books.
I travel to these places.
I regret that I was not able to
include that, because it really
was a golden age.
It was a little more
diffuse, over time.
Lasted longer, frankly.
And the other place that I had
hoped to go to, perhaps I was
on the fence, it was Paris,
actually at the 1920's.
But Woody Allen's movie
"Midnight in Paris"
had just come out,
and I thought, well
that's a little obvious.
But true story, I
just got a phone call
from a French
publisher who said,
Mr. Weiner, your
book is very nice,
but why no chapter on France?
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
ERIC WEINER: We have
the geniuses here.
And so they may
fly me out to Paris
to write a chapter for the
French edition, about Paris.
Which I just may
take them up on.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
ERIC WEINER: Yeah, two
places I would have.
But maybe in the paperback?
Or the expanded version?
Or the Hollywood film?
Who knows.
VINT CERF: OK.
There we are.
David. you
DAVID: Eric, thank you
for writing this book.
I've only gotten
through Athens so far,
but looking forward to--
ERIC WEINER: Congratulations.
DAVID: --the rest
of it, thank you.
You talk about genius
and creativity in a hole.
I think some of the
examples you use though,
are different from one another.
You talk about
the genius of art.
And the genius of discovery.
And the genius of creation.
I'm wondering how different
they are from one another.
So for instance, if David
had not been carved,
there might not ever
have been a David.
But the light bulb
certainly would
have been invented, or
discovered, at some point.
And some of the things that are
built, would have been built
anyway, would have
been discovered anyway,
would have been figured
out anyway, over time.
ERIC WEINER: Are you sure?
DAVID: I'm confident.
I'm not sure, but I'm confident.
But you look at, for
instance, the music
of Stevie Wonder, right?
And nobody might have
ever, til the end of time,
been another Stevie Wonder.
But the internet,
Vint, I think you're
a wonderful, wonderful,
person, but I
think at some point the internet
would have been discovered,
or invented, or created.
VINT CERF: It certainly
wasn't discovered.
It's an invention.
That's an important thing.
We didn't pick up a cabbage,
and find the internet.
DAVID: In fact maybe my
question ought to be for Vint.
Would the internet
have been built?
VINT CERF: Well there
would have been something.
And I agree with you.
We had a little discussion
before this, this afternoon.
A lot of things happened because
it's now possible for them
to happen.
There was a lot going
on in networking.
Internet happened to
have been the design that
was most successful.
But there were several other
networking technologies
at the time.
There were some
proprietary, some like X.25
was a global thing.
The OSI structure, it
was another proposal.
So yes, I agree with you that
something would have happened,
because it was possible.
And many people were
thinking about it,
and trying experiments.
So I agree with that.
But I'm glad that the one
that I worked on came out OK.
DAVID: Me too.
Thank you.
ERIC WEINER: I guess I don't
see them as that different.
I think creativity
is creativity,
but there are some
differences, you're right.
An art historian
in Florence told me
that, what made the
David the David,
is that once it was created,
people knew it was the best,
and knew there would
not be an upgrade.
A David 2.0, right?
A piece of art like that,
renders any idea of improvement
silly, really.
And of course,
science and technology
is always being improved upon.
I mean, Steve Jobs,
shortly before his death,
was asked about the connection
between Renaissance Florence
and Silicon Valley.
And he, I think,
rightfully pointed out
one of the differences is that
the artists of Renaissance
Florence were creating
something for all time,
to last forever,
through the ages.
And in Silicon Valley
they're creating something--
VINT CERF: That lasts six
months, if you're lucky.
ERIC WEINER: Thank you
for completing the line.
You're right.
And that is the difference.
There are differences,
but I just
have a feeling that the
creative scientist, and that
is not an oxymoron, has more in
common with a creative artist
than they think.
But I try to put them
under an umbrella,
because we consider them genius.
We consider Mozart a genius, and
we consider Einstein a genius.
And we don't modify either one.
We don't say that Einstein
was a scientific genius.
And that Mozart was
a musical genius.
We tend to just use
the word genius, so
that they transcend
their excellence,
and their je ne sais quoi,
got the French thing going,
elevates them above
their particular field.
And I do think that happens,
but it's a good point though.
VINT CERF: OK, we have
a question back there.
Do you have thoughts about
whether the physical attributes
of the place make a difference?
ERIC WEINER: Yeah,
that's a good question.
When I first got to
Athens, and you're
struck by the sunshine in
Athens, 300 days a year
of sunshine.
And the light, which is very
striking, very severe, and it
was a Greek painter,
Apollodorus,
who first developed the
ability to use shadow to create
the impression of depth.
And that makes sense.
And I thought, well,
is it the weather?
Maybe that would be easy.
But then you think about
Elizabeth London, no.
That was not so sunny.
I think the main thing
is, of the attributes,
is that they
provide a challenge.
There are difficult places.
Have you heard of the oil curse?
And it goes by different names.
It's basically the idea that
certain Persian Gulf nations
are not particularly
innovative, because they just
don't have to do be.
That they're so awash in
oil, and even with oil prices
where they are now,
and with natural gas,
that they don't have
anything to push against.
They don't have a challenge.
So the one thing
that I think actually
is important, is
to be challenged.
Now in Athens, the
challenge was the land
was crummy, and
didn't grow much.
Florence was malarial,
and didn't have a seaport.
Ah, Silicon Valley.
What's the challenge?
Too much Beauty No.
I think it was the
isolation, separation,
from the rest of the country.
That really mattered
back in the early 1900s.
They were able to
have a fresh start.
They had a chip
on their shoulder.
Not the microchip,
but the other kind.
They wanted they wanted to
prove themselves, really.
In an indirect way, yes, I think
the land itself plays a role.
VINT CERF: Something interesting
about Silicon Valley.
In the book you talk
about Fred Terman,
and his father, Lewis Terman.
Fred was provost of
Stanford University.
But he was the
guy who recognized
that the advances that were made
during the Second World War,
were a consequence of government
investment in the Manhattan
Project, in computers, and
things like that, radar.
And he realized that there was
an opportunity for Stanford
to continue that level of
creativity, and invention,
and discovery, if they could get
continued government support.
So he made the argument that
the government should continue
to fund this kind
of research, and it
enabled him to expand the
engineering and research
department by a factor of three.
Because basically,
instead of having
to pay for the cost of the
professors out of tuition,
he paid for 2/3 of their
cost out of research funds,
which meant that they could have
three times as many professors,
and still have one
third teaching load.
And so part of the
Silicon Valley phenomenon,
comes out of that
recognition and action.
And after that,
he was the one who
counseled Hewlett
and Packard, as you
wrote, to go start a
company, as opposed
to going to work somewhere.
And this idea of starting
companies starts with HP.
And it continues to this day.
And that whole
feedback loop, you
mention in the book
about feedback loops,
and how reinforcing they can be.
I think Silicon Valley
discovered that feedback loop
very early in the
game, in the 1950s.
So let me get Mike, and then
we have one more over there.
Oh, OK, so let's
take this one first.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thank you for this topic.
I think it's really
fascinating, and I
was hoping you could talk a
little bit about what happened,
or what you thought
about the societies,
once the golden age ended.
Was there anything in common?
Do you think of anything
that's happened--
these all happened in
different parts of time
but taken together,
was there anything
that China has in common
with Edinburgh, for example?
ERIC WEINER: Do you mean
about why they ended?
Or about what
happened afterwards?
AUDIENCE: What happened to
the society, really, after?
Did some of them
revert to a dark age?
Do you still see some of
these factors for genius
that could come back?
ERIC WEINER: Yeah,
that's a good question.
Obviously nothing
particularly good happens.
But it's very interesting that
the Greeks, the Athenians, you
can mark their
decline almost exactly
with when they became foodies.
Because, when they were
in their golden age,
they were not into food at all.
They had a very bland diet.
Aristophanes, the
playwright and poet,
attributed the keen Athenian
mind to their low calorie diet.
And then they started
to eat gourmet food,
and shop at the equivalent of
Williams and Sonoma, back then.
No really, that
kind of decadence
is, and getting back to someones
question about Silicon Valley,
you see signs of that there.
They tend to be one way
streets, for the most part.
With a few exceptions.
Being that once the
golden age happens,
it takes a long, long time
for anything to come back.
Vienna was a bit
of an exception,
because you had
music in 1788, 1800,
ending probably with Beethoven.
And then 75, 100
years later, you
had this huge explosion
with Freud and Gustav Klimt.
So that was an exception.
I think China can be an
exception to this one way rule,
because the Chinese
view everything
in a more cyclical way.
They certainly view time
in a more cyclical way.
We tend to view it as one way.
That you get one
shot at everything.
And I do address in
the book, this notion
of what I call the golden
age hangover, which
is, no seriously, in these
places that were great,
and then where tourists
flock to today,
to immerse themselves in,
and wallow in the greatness.
Those are problems.
You don't want to
be a young artist
today, in Florence, Italy.
I met with some of
them in a dinner party,
and the weight of
the past, they're
visibly slumping in their
seat, their shoulders
are slumping, because good
luck trying to do anything.
And I meet with a Greek
philosopher today,
and he's like, it's tough.
I'm like, so what's
it like being
a Greek philosopher in 2015?
And he said hungry.
Very hungry.
But less true for
Scotland, and some
of the other places
that-- ironically,
the places that are lesser
known on the world stage,
and get fewer
tourists, they still
have a bit more
creativity going on.
VINT CERF: So here we go, Mike.
Is there someone else
with a microphone, also?
MIKE NELSON: As I mentioned
before, I teach at Georgetown,
so I pay a lot of attention
to the bibliography in a book,
because I'm always trying
to pull together a syllabus.
So I wanted to
know whether there
were any books in
your bibliography
that really shaped how you
approach this question.
I noticed that you referenced
Richard Florida's work
on creative clusters.
There's a great
book by Daniel Pink,
called "Drive," that talks about
how to motivate innovation.
But two favorite books
are by Tom Standage, who's
written "The History of
the World in 6 Glasses,"
and he talked about
the power of coffee
for spurring innovation
and collaboration.
ERIC WEINER: Yeah, I'm
not entirely sold on that.
I think the coffee
house, and the--
MIKE NELSON: Exactly.
ERIC WEINER: --cafe, yes.
But--
MIKE NELSON: The coffee house.
ERIC WEINER: --not
necessarily the caffeine.
Caffeine actually will make
you a little bit less creative.
It doesn't seem--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
MIKE NELSON: But he
also talks about,
he's got a book called
"Writing on the Wall"
the first 2,000 years
of social media.
ERIC WEINER: The books
that I like the most,
are probably the
more boring ones.
I make it a habit to read boring
books, and translating them.
No, seriously.
Sir Peter Hall, who
passed away recently,
wrote the book that my
publisher feared I would write,
called Cities and Civilization.
1,057 pages long.
And he really did go
to all these places.
And certainly that
was very helpful.
I read a lot of Lewis Mumford,
and his classics on the city.
I tended to read the older
stuff, and bring it to light.
And I would find some gems.
I was a fellow at
Georgetown at the time,
and you have a halfway
decent library there,
and I found a book called
"The Anatomy of Inspiration."
Really obscure book.
And this is one of the
joys of researching a book,
is finding these obscure
books, these geniuses, right,
and borrowing their ideas.
But crediting them.
And that had so
much on the habits
of these particular geniuses.
VINT CERF: We should
probably wrap up in a bit,
and you'll have an opportunity
for some refreshments,
and a chance to get your book
signed, if Eric is so inclined.
ERIC WEINER: I'm inclined.
VINT CERF: I was going to ask
a slightly different question,
maybe to a question,
and then a wrap up.
When you talk about golden
ages, I was thinking,
let's ignore cities
for just a moment,
although in history, sometimes
the city and the culture
were coterminous.
Athens and Sparta, and so on.
But let's imagine just
civilizations now, and forget
about specific cities.
Do you suppose, just based on
what you've already researched,
are there similarities
between the cultures of each
of those golden ages?
So There's a golden
age in Persia,
there's a golden age in China,
there's a golden age in Japan,
is there anything about them
that you could correlate?
Is there something
we can distill
from looking at these
various golden ages
that will tell us something
about how they start,
and why they end?
ERIC WEINER: You saved
the big question for last.
VINT CERF: You're welcome.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
ERIC WEINER: I think if you
read the book, first of all,
you'll be surprised
at how much fun it is.
Because it is a journey.
And the question, though,
that I wrestled with,
is, I know people like to have
everything tied up in a bow.
And they like to know
what the formula is.
And I wrestle with
that, because the book
is very much an intellectual
journey, and an exploration.
Trying to really, in a
really open minded way,
figure out what the
heck was going on there,
and what can we learn from it?
And in the epilogue, I do
come up with a small bow.
What I call the three
D's, which I think
are essential to
all of these places.
And I thought of a fourth
D since the book came out,
but that's OK, it's in there
anyway, in other forms.
And that is diversity,
discernment, and disorder.
We've talked a bit about--
VINT CERF: Diversity?
ERIC WEINER: Diversity,
discernment, and disorder.
VINT CERF: Discernment
and disorder.
ERIC WEINER: Add a
little discomfort.
Let's make it four D's.
What the heck?
VINT CERF: What's
the fourth one?
ERIC WEINER: Discomfort.
VINT CERF: Oh, discomfort.
Oh good.
Yes.
Yay.
ERIC WEINER: Yay, discomfort.
And so they all
have this in common,
but then they all have
their unique flavors
and other things going on.
Diversity, I'm not
really speaking
about ethnic diversity,
though that does help.
I'm speaking about
intellectual diversity.
But typically people
from other places
tend to bring other
ideas, which is helpful.
A free flow of ideas.
That kind of diversity.
And really, it doesn't
begin with the letter D
because it's a letter O, but
it's important, too openness.
Openness to experience.
That's the one trait
that psychologists
say is the most important
for creative people,
and I would say creative places.
It's pretty broad, I
know, but it's important.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Number two is
discernment, because it's
like the flip side
of the openness.
You can't just have tolerance.
Las Vegas is a pretty darn
tolerant place, but not
a lot of genius coming out of
there, except for Andre Agassi.
Jonas Salk, two-time
Nobel prize winner,
once asked by a young
student, Dr. Salk,
how do you come up with
so many good ideas?
He said, well it's easy.
I come up with lots of ideas,
and I throw out the bad ones.
That's discernment.
It's important.
So these places of genius
are not only magnets,
they're colanders.
And the third is disorder.
This is the chaos
we talked about.
The low level of tension.
Not war, but tension.
A stirring of the pot.
May you live in interesting
times, as the Chinese say.
That applies well for
creative places as well.
And then discomfort, which
we're adding here right now,
because this speaks to the need
for constraints and challenges,
and to have something
to push against.
And to just bring Google in
briefly, if I can do that?
VINT CERF: Sure.
ERIC WEINER: OK.
I'll be honest, one
thing that concerns
me, but I think that Google
is doing well, is you
want to attract talent.
You want to bring in the
best and the brightest.
But I think you don't want to
make people too comfortable.
You want them to be challenged.
VINT CERF: Do you want
to know how we did that?
ERIC WEINER: How?
VINT CERF: Well, you know how
we have these little mini cafe,
micro kitchens everywhere?
When I came to
Google, 10 years ago,
it was junk food everywhere.
We were in heaven.
And then the junk food police
came along, and they said,
you know what we're doing?
We're destroying the health
of our best engineers.
And so they took all
the junk food away,
and there was this small
eruption after that.
And the compromise was that
the good food is at eye level,
and the not so good
food is down here,
and the really junk
food is down there,
and you have to
squat down to get it,
and it's obvious when
you're doing that,
and you get a little
exercise in the process.
So that's how we managed to
generate a certain amount
of creative discomfort.
ERIC WEINER: A little
discomfort is good.
Keep the constraints in there.
You know, maybe people should
receive mild electric shocks
randomly just to keep
them on their toes.
So I think those are the key.
I'd probably say, the
one thing is probably
the openness to experience.
You don't see a lot
of geniuses coming out
of Pyongyang, North Korea.
And why is that?
This goes back to
my original thesis.
Well, if you believe
that genius is genetic,
then you have to say, well the
North Koreans have bad genes,
well they don't.
Their genetics are fine.
Or if you believe it's
all about hard work,
you would have to
say well, there
are no geniuses because
they don't work hard,
and they work plenty hard.
VINT CERF: OK.
ERIC WEINER: So what
are you left with?
You're left with the soil.
You're left with a
society that is not open.
That's the opposite
of an open society.
And I think that explains a lot.
VINT CERF: It does indeed.
Well let me ask all of us to
thank you for writing the book
and joining us today.
ERIC WEINER: Thank you.
VINT CERF: Thank you.
