YouSaid · the spoken record

Eric Weiner

lines on the record: 111
first: 2016-02-01
most recent: 2016-02-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“That slick in her hair, a crack of thunder that rattles our insides a Mediterranean sun that warms our face. And so it is with history. The story of the world is not the story of coups and revolutions, it is the story of lost keys and burnt coffee and a sleeping child in your arms. History is the untallied sum of a million everyday moments. Within this quotidian stew, genius quietly simmers. Sigmund Freud nibbling on his favorite sponge cake at Vienna's cafe Landman, Einstein staring out the window of the Swiss patent office in Bern, Leonardo da Vinci wiping the sweat from his forehead at a hot and dusty Florentine workshop. Yes, these geniuses thought big, world changing thoughts, but they did so in small spaces, down here, like all politics, is local.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, well, this sort of sums up my approach. Yeah, I think this will be good. So I've just arrived in Athens and I'm jet lagged and I'm confused and I'm overwhelmed about trying to figure out this mystery that was the golden age of Athens. And here's what's going on in my head. I plopped down onto my bed and thumb through the small library of books I've packed, a whimsical collection curated from the vast ocean of ink that ancient Greece has spawned. My eyes are drawn to a quirky little volume called Daily Life in Athens at the time of Pericles. It's a pleasing anecdote to the usual history, which is written from a mountaintop and is as dry as a desert. Historians typically track wars and upheavals and sweeping ideological movements like so many weather systems, most of us, though, don't experience weather that way. We experience it down here, not as a massive low pressure system, but as sheets of rain.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a whole nother story. Yeah, that's your next story. But here's one thing that's interesting. I'll ask you this why does Silicon Valley continue to exist as a place? Shouldn't it be the last place? Because what they're selling here is a placeless future. They're telling me I can be anywhere with my iPhone and with Skype. Yet people keep coming here.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not immune to it, it's technology. We think of the future and we just think of technology. And science fiction movies present the future in terms of technology. But there's the world of ideas that is not as snazzy on the big screen. And it may have, you know, we may fall out of love with technology. I know maybe you have ideas.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hmm. Boy, that's a good question. Health comes to mind as the world ages, some breakthrough in that field. But again, see, even I'm...”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. That's why they wear fleece and jeans, but the fleece is getting fancier, I think. And to me, it just sniffs of... Arrogance possibly, and I worry about that, but I think it's got another.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Important, they must continue to believe in their myth when they no longer buy into their myth, or I would say the canary in the coal mine is the bling. You know, in the decade or so, I've been coming out here. I notice. More bling and blank”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It sniffed and said California needs an elite university the way Switzerland needs a retirement home for sea captains. And this pissed off the people in California. So they had something to push against. They had the chip. And I think it's important to, even if you are an insider, to continue to think of yourself as an outsider.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, but they're small, and they've got the chip on their shoulder, right? They're trying to prove something. And the Scots were that way. Silicon Valley was all about the chip, not the microchips. The chip on your shoulder. Outsiders. And, you know, when I was researching the book, I dug up some clips from when Stanford University was founded by Leyland Stanford. And a New York paper sniffed. And I'm not kidding. You can smell.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think they're doing things. They've got a free flow of information. They're small, but they have a strong culture. They were never really crucified by the Russians under the Soviet Union.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's got to help. I mean, it's got to help. It's got to make it more likely. All I'm saying is that ethnic diversity is not a guarantee of intellectual diversity.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say it's important as long as those people come with different ideas. And it's true that if you're a woman, if you're Asian, whatever you tend to bring a different worldview, but the danger is you will have the ethnic diversity, but you won't have any intellectual diversity because everyone will be drinking the same water or Kool-Aid or whatever, and no one will play the role of Socrates and say, excuse me, why? Do we have a ping-pong table here? Is that really necessary? Because whether you're from New Delhi or North Carolina, I'm guessing they will be.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think of it as your kitchen, and in the cupboard you have ingredients. And if you have always the same ingredients and you don't replenish them with new ingredients, ultimately you can only make so many dishes. You can go to that app that says, here's what I have, what can I make? Okay, at some point you run out. Silicon Valley needs to keep replenishing the ingredients.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll give you one word Detroit That was a one note town. And when the note was popular, automobiles, it was doing very well. We're assuming, and maybe it's just, you know, everyone, it's one of those assumptions that Socrates would question that technology is always going to matter, this particular kind of technology. We're always going to care about it, and that Silicon Valley will always be best at it. I have to say it has bucked the trend. It's been around, depending on if you market from Hewlett and Packard's garage, that's what, 60, 70 years at least.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Because one of the conclusions I reach in the book is that creativity is a response to a challenge. And if you're not challenged, you're not going to be creative. And constraints are helpful. Robert Frost, if I can throw a little poetry in here, once said that writing free verse poetry is like playing tennis without a net. We need the Twitter works partly because of the constraints of 140 characters.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I worry about that. I've talked about it on many shows before, but I always say that San Francisco is assisted living for millennials Because they get everything. And they're in these little sort of everything is provided to them.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Something we haven't talked about is that garages are uncomfortable in difficult places, and that's important. You know, Steve Jobs wax poetic about how when he dropped out of Reed College he was living rough in the streets. And those constraints and hardships are important. But then when you become successful, like a Google or an Apple, all of a sudden the constraints are replaced with free food and free laundry service and beanbag chairs. I worry about that.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's believing in your own myth because it motivates you. Because it's hard to get out of bed and say, I'm going to go do some serious mooching today and make the world a better place. But you can't say I'm going to create something out of nothing. And that motivates people. So it's useful. And the myth of the lone genius is useful. It motivates people, but it can be destructive too when you think that it's just a person sitting in their garage. The garage. The garage. The garage.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Brought things together. You were taught that was in Thing of Genius Synthesis. He wasn't a know-it-all He was a see it all. Right? He saw something. That others didn't see. Einstein wasn't the best physicist of his day. Others knew more physics, but he saw things and made connections. And there's a reason we have the term visionary. It's the vision thing. It's seeing connections. It's not just knowing a lot. Wozniak probably knew more, right?”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they're the pinnacle. They're doing seemingly magically what everyone else wants to do in producing something that we care about. Now, the wrap on Steve Jobs, and you probably know this better than I do, is that he didn't invent anything. No. Now, does that matter”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I would go to a cocktail party in Washington, DC and say, is Steve Jobs a genius, and it was 50 50. Oh. What would it be here?”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, we shouldn't be surprised if people were saying, where are the Einstein's, where are the Darwins, where are the Beethovens, why are we stuck with the Steve Jobs? Some people on the East Coast say that. I don't know if they say that on themselves.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's taking his place. It fits this romantic notion. They fit the romantic notion we have of genius. They're odd. They're difficult. They seemingly create magic, create things out of nothing. They don't seem to need to have anyone else working with them as a team. But of course, these are myths. They need that. And ultimately, it's what they're producing, right? We get the geniuses we want and we deserve. So in 18th century Vienna, what did people care about? Music. Who are the geniuses? Beethoven and Mozart. What do we care about? Technology. Who are our geniuses? Steve Jobs, Elon Musk.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, roads are good, and aqueducts are nice, but democracy in theater can't beat those. So where is the world of ideas out here? And where is the interdisciplinary nature? The best example I can think of is Pixar, where you have Hollywood and Silicon Valley coming together. That's interdisciplinary. But hardware, software, it is all technology. Why Steve Jobs considered a genius? Because we get the genius. Talk about jobs.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, it's all technology. We today, and maybe this is again heretical on your show, but we just think of innovation in technological terms. I mean, the words are so closely linked. But, you know, throughout history, great places have not, not all of them have cared about technology. The Athenians didn't care about technology partly because they had slaves to do the work. The Florentines didn't really care about technology.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you could think about it. I mean, if you think of a car as not as changing our country, making small cities impossible intolerance, you could move, the car had more of an impact than just the car. You'd be able to move.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what I think of that a lot, I always use the phrase there's a lot of big minds chasing small ideas here. There's a lot of very smart people, and they tend to focus on not. Now, lately, they have been going for bigger ideas, cars and bigger?”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't give much thought to conceptual leaps. Is that common? I think it's a problem because ultimately it's a conceptual leaps that matter. And they think, well, we'll come up with a new technology and that will lead to a conceptual leap, not necessarily.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That you don't, you know, Darwin didn't, there was no app for natural selection. Right. There will be now. But his leap was conceptual. And it seems to me then Silicon Valley people...”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, well, the myth is Okay, one myth is that you can create something from nothing, that when you create something new, it's unlike anything that has ever come before. Not true. Absolutely. Absolutely not true. Another myth is probably that you can change the world with your device or your gadget.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Quarrel some dirty, drunken place, and it was a place of genius. He said, Well, the Scotsman told me, well, we believed in our own myth. And people in Silicon Valley believe in their own networks. Totally. But that actually can be a good thing because myths in the sort of Joseph Campbell sense of the word are not just things that are false and untrue and that must be slayed. They're very powerful. So what”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, I was in Scotland and I was asking the question of that. We didn't talk about Scotland, but this will apply here. I said, How did the Scots do it? They were small and”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All innovation, all creativity is built upon the past. If I were to invent something that was totally new, unrecognizable, a coffee cup that just didn't look like any other coffee cup, you wouldn't know what to do with it. It has to be recognizable. And it's always incremental. And you're always standing on the shoulders of giants.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's become a tradition. Actually, I mean, when Google started it or wasn't really a tradition, but now the beanbag chair and the ping pong table has become a tradition. And I think the thing that Silicon Valley misses is that”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And it's pretty mixed evidence about whether they work from a creativity point of view, but people don't question it because that's the way everyone.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They don't care for history consciously, but there is a tradition here. Like take the open plan office. If you start a new startup, you're like, we must have an open plan office. Which is fine.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is perfect. It's absolutely perfect. This idea of them thinking that they're new when they're not, or that there's any history. I did a thing around Mobert Noyce the other day that your creator, one of the great early entrepreneurs, founder of Intel. And I think David Brancci asked me, like, when you say Robert Noyce, what do people say? I'm like, they don't. None of these young girls don't.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Than do people who work elsewhere? They are deeply loyal workers. Their loyalty, though, is not to any particular company, but to one another into the creed of technology.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Throughout my time in Silicon Valley, I keep having flashbacks. I keep thinking, wait, this isn't new at all. This is the way they did it in Athens or Florence or Hongzhou. I don't say this out loud, of course. Nobody wants to hear it. They're too caught up in the illusion that Silicon Valley was created ex nilo from nothing. Silicon Valley, in fact, is a Frankenstein place assembled from bits and pieces of golden ages past and soldered together into something supposedly new. Everywhere I look, I detect echoes of these golden ages past. As in ancient Athens people here are motivated by something other than personal gain. They're doing it not for themselves, at least not only for themselves, but to further their religion, making the world a better place through the transformative power of technology. A recent survey by the consulting from Accenture found that people who work in Silicon Valley care more about what their peers think.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. I'm sorry. In fact, I can hear. Let me read a section for my silicone chapter, which is where I end up. And after having traveled back in time into all these places, the thing that struck me is it felt familiar when I got here. You know, I didn't feel like I was in some new place of genius. I saw signs of the conflict.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No air quotes, but I don't think they're genius. Most of them are not geniuses. They have some good ideas. But there are some commonalities. What do you think the commonalities here are that have worked that are good for it? And what do you worry about?”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If everybody's special. They're gods. No, let's be honest, they are the secular world's gods. When you look at the adulation of Steve Jobs in a morning of his passing, and it was, I thought, very religious. I mean. And we treat these people, though, as if they just come here like shooting stars. You can't predict their arrival. Yeah, the gods have bequeathed these gods to us. And it doesn't work that way. It's really a product of place and time. As I say in the book, we get the geniuses that we want and that we deserve.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And my theory about genius is as soon as you modify it, as soon as you describe Steve Jubb as a marketing genius or there's any or a political genius for someone else, as soon as there's a modifier in front of it, you're no longer a genius.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't want to be arrogant because we've determined that that is bad for you. As long as you're not doing yoga while you're doing it. Geography.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do some downward dog. Okay, all right, no, please do not because I'm not away with that. We're going to talk about Silicon Valley, and I want you to read. I want you to begin by reading when we start.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, he's just doing down. I want to get my exercise. I'm like, well, I'm sorry, you big friggin' baby. It was amazing. And that, you know, and then we disagreed about something else. And it was like the most disturbing. And it was previously that was okay. And then it suddenly wasn't. And it literally was because every single person his life agreed with him almost continually.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And they were like, that's not true. And it was a really interesting experience because I did know him before he could actually accept conflict or someone who disagreed with him. Something had happened in the personality. Not something good. No, it started because he started doing the downward dog yoga position in front of me while I was speaking to him. And I said, what the hell are you doing?”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is very. It's interesting. I was just talking, too, and we'll get into Silicon Valley in a second, the culture here. I was talking to someone very famous founder here. And I said something against what he was saying, and he sort of looked at me like. Doubting me, and I said, Oh, I'm sorry. I knew you before you were a genius, and he sort of was like, What are you talking about? And I said, everybody licks you up and down all day long. That must be hard to be interesting after that. Like to be wrong.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think what happens is when you become successful, you have something to lose. So you lose that risk taking because all of a sudden taking a risk, their stakes are higher. And doing it this way has worked so you continue to do it that way. And self-disruption is a very difficult thing to do. It is very difficult.”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the problem with arrogance is that there's no room for ignorance in arrogance. Right. You know everything. You know everything, and therefore you've lost that openness. Because the one psychological trait that's most important for creativity is openness to experience. It's true for people. It's true for places. This place has been open to experience. It's a broad idea, but you get it. And once you start to close down,”
2016-02-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Eric Weiner, Author of "The Geography of Genius" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT