How to be more innovative

Sam Schillace, Microsoft corporate vice president and deputy CTO, and the creator behind Writely and Google Docs, discusses how disruptive innovation happens and why it often looks like a toy at first. The conversation covers optimism versus pessimism, first-principles and 'what-if' thinking, the link between user laziness and product adoption, and his current views on AI as a platform that will make pixels and software far more dynamic.

01Key learnings

• Treat 'why not' objections as signals to examine, and answer them with 'what if' questions about how far an idea could go if it works.
• Judge disruption by polarization: if people either love or hate something, it is more likely disruptive than something met with mild indifference.
• Make experiments cheap and fast so you can test ideas quickly, since you will almost always be wrong about the product until you put it in front of people.
• Stay optimistic and receptive to surprises, because a pessimistic frame of mind causes you to miss interesting failures and unexpected results.
• Validate that a product delivers real user value; users are lazy, so adoption requires the benefit to far outweigh the effort of learning and signing up.
• Pick concrete north-star goals when exploring new technology so experimentation produces learning rather than aimless tinkering.
• Balance rigid commitment to your mission with flexibility toward feedback, and know when to persist versus move on.
• Work on what you are good at and enjoy with high intensity; impact tends to follow from that, and the best work often feels like play.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.