Alexander Graham Bell

Edison's genius: plan less, do more

Wilson's core takeaway from Edison's tinkering: as a self-taught non-theorist, Edison brute-forced inventions by trying every material rather than reasoning from first principles. The lesson is to spend less time planning and more time running reps and failing.

“He just dove in and started trying stuff, and he was just unbelievably persistent. He tried and he tried until he brute-forced his way into a solution, into an answer.”

Steal thisPlan less, do more: stop debating the optimal approach and start running reps, failing, and adapting on the fly.