Serial Innovators

A select group of great innovators have produced more than one major contribution. These exceptional individuals are known far beyond their own disciplines, and are routinely described as unique. Yet although their extraordinary accomplishments obviously make them outliers, the processes by which they arrive at their discoveries follow patterns that are shared by innovators more generally. This paper examines these patterns for six great serial innovators of the modern era: the experimental Henry Ford, who worked tirelessly by trial and error to make better cars more efficiently, and the conceptual Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Walt Disney, Miles Davis, and Steve Jobs, who formulated surprising new ideas and products by connecting previously unrelated elements. These contrasting methods of discovery resulted in sharply contrasting life cycles of creativity, as Einstein, Picasso, Disney, Davis, and Jobs all made major contributions during their 20s, but Ford did not make his first great innovation until he was 45.