Steven Johnson on ‘Where Good Ideas Come From’

Everyone knows what it feels like to come up with a good idea. It comes from someplace, not completely made out of thin air. Usually it’s being formed in the back of your head among all of the little, unconnected thoughts, memories and hunches until … BAM! It arrives.

What if we tracked the history of the most significant ideas that humans have ever come up with, in order to see if there’s a pattern to these little moments of genius? That’d be a pretty good idea all on its own, right?

Turns out Steven Johnson came up with that little beauty already. Stephen wrote a new book, entitled “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation.”