Apple stole the mouse from Xerox, Picasso stole from everyone, and copywriters keep swipe files of ads they remix. The best work is 80 to 90 percent borrowed, 10 to 20 percent your own twist. Stealing ideas is how you actually innovate.
If you look at this mouse over here from Apple, Xerox, so Apple went to Xerox, they stole the mouse, right? They stole the GUI, the graphical user interface, right? But they made it their own, right? Steve Jobs himself has said, everything in life is a remix. When you think about SpaceX, the rockets coming back, the way the rocket is designed hasn't changed much, right, from the past. But the big difference is it can come back to Earth, right? And the final thing is Picasso said that great artists steal. So I think we hold this whole, like, we have to be original thing really sacred. But at the end of the day, when you think about copywriting, we're swiping, we have these swipe files, right? We're just iterating. And the 10 to 20% that you iterate, like when you make it 10 to 20% yours, it basically is original, right? So that's the whole concept of thievery. And I'm trying to get people to reframe that it's okay to, you know, when you're learning from people, you actually are quote unquote stealing.
