What people get wrong about innovation

So today we're going to drive to the Italian part of Switzerland, Locarno, for a team meeting. And on the way I'm going to give an interview with a newspaper in Catalunya. Well, people think, oh, if I just have a good idea, then I'm going to succeed. The reality is ideas are free, they're everywhere. What we really need to be able to get really good at, and that's the profession of entrepreneurship and innovation, is actually to take an idea and to admit probably it's crappy, probably customers don't care, probably the business model is not going to work. But I have a process to adapt the idea until customers care, until I find the right business model. And this is a different process from managing a business. So most leaders are kind of good with managing a business, but they're not very good with inventing new businesses. Now, the new modern organization needs to be really good at both. You know, just being good at innovation is not enough. You also need to be good at managing. So it's what we call exploit and explore being world class at both, because you need to make money and run your business and at the same time, you need to reinvent yourself. You can't do one without the other. You need both all the time. Big companies can be as innovative as startups, and I think if they figure out how to do it, they're going to be even better because they have access to financial resources, they have access to patents and technology, they have access to existing customers. So I do believe it can be done. But I think you're right that this is still the exception. You might know the company called Discord. They got an offer from Microsoft for over $10 billion and they said no, they didn't want to get bought by Microsoft. So what does that mean? It's actually more expensive and harder for established companies to buy startups. So I think companies are going to get more sophisticated to use several tools. Acquisitions is one tool. And what companies are getting really good at is to use all the tools, grow it yourself, acquire, invest, maybe learn and then buy. You know, you try out things, you test, and then when you figure out, oh, this is how it works, what could be a good company that we could buy? So acquire acquisition used to be the only tool, and today it's one tool among many. So the best companies, they use the whole toolbox, not just acquisition. Perfect. Thank you very much. Gracias.