The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results

by Andrew McAfee

Are you ready for it? Here it is. Here’s the ultimate geek ground rule: Shape the ultrasociality of group members so that the group’s cultural evolution is as rapid as possible in the desired direction. That ground rule might not have made a lot of sense before you started reading this book, but I hope it makes some sense now. At a high level, shaping the group’s ultrasociality means putting in place the norms of science, ownership, speed, and openness. At a lower level, it means increasing observability, decreasing plausible deniability, and doing other things that we’ll explore in the pages ahead. Making cultural evolution as rapid as possible means compressing the time it takes you to launch your spaceships, or whatever you’re launching. Innovate more. Improve faster. Become more nimble. Make your customers happier. Operate with greater efficiency and reliability. Get higher productivity growth (or, for you noneconomists, get better at converting all your inputs into outputs). All of these are business versions of cultural evolution. In recent decades, we’ve learned a lot about how cultural evolution happens. As a result, we know how to speed it up.