Cognitive Diversity & Its Role in Invention

We often underestimate the power of cognitive diversity in powering breakthroughs. Build culture that embraces cognitive tension.

History has shown us that inspiration strikes ⚡ from the most unlikeliest of places.

🧵 Did you know it was a silk weaver who, through his invention of the first programmable loom (’The Jacquard’), inspired the development of binary code and modern computer design? (1804)

🧠 Did you know that it was ideas from neuroscience and philosophy that inspired the transformer neural network architecture, which catalyzed the technological leaps in generative AI taking the world by storm today? (2017)

“The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns, just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.” - Ada Lovelace(1843) 🧮

Yet, we often underestimate the power of cognitive diversity in powering breakthroughs. Cognitive diversity doesn’t just mean demographic diversity. It leverages differences in frameworks, perspectives, experiences, and analogous references. The biggest breakthroughs in technology have always drawn inspiration from outside the field; in AI today we see it from linguistics (power of language and context), psychology (how to best collaborate between human and machine.. from user interfaces to thought interfaces?), philosophy (what is consciousness, what is intelligence, what is humanity?).

As someone who took an atypical path to VC, I believe that a differentiated perspective is one of our investing superpowers. We take a human-centric approach to early-stage investing: gleaning insights from data, rather than trying too hard to pattern-match; drawing learnings from analogous contexts; daring to be contrarian, and always open to re-designing and re-examining our assumptions. This is why I believe creativity is fundamental to venture; both for founders and funders.

After all, you never know when inspiration strikes, and paradigms, shift.

#design #venture #investing #technology