Why haven't we celebrated any major achievements lately?

Event: Jerry Neumann on managing innovation

The Torch of Progress, Episode 11

On Wednesday I interview Jerry Neumann, angel investor and professor at Columbia University, for “The Torch of Progress”, the speaker series of Progress Studies For Young Scholars. We’ll be talking about organization & management of research, linear and non-linear models of innovation, and uncertainty vs. risk in progress.

Wed, 10am Pacific, free and open to all: register here

If you’re not familiar with Jerry’s work, check out a recent essay of his, “One Process”, on the question: are incremental improvements different in kind from revolutionary breakthroughs? Or do they exist on a spectrum?

Jerry’s blog is very insightful, and he lives at the intersection of theory and practice. Looking forward to this!

See all our past and upcoming episodes here.

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Interview: AEI's Political Economy with Jim Pethokoukis

I was interviewed by Jim Pethokoukis for the AEI Political Economy podcast. We discussed asymmetric risk in funding progress, how celebrations of progress have changed, how to use progress for good, and more.

Listen on the show page, or read the transcript.

See all my interviews here.

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Why haven't we celebrated any major achievements lately?

In reading stories of progress, one thing that has struck me was the wild, enthusiastic celebrations that accompanied some of them in the past. Read some of these stories; somehow it’s hard for me to imagine similar jubilation happening today:

https://rootsofprogress.org/celebrations-of-progress

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Study Group for Progress starts Sep 13

This fall I am hosting a study/discussion group on the history, economics and philosophy of progress.

We'll have a Q&A each week featuring a different special guest. Reading from the guest will be given ahead of time. Confirmed speakers so far include: Robert J. Gordon (author of The Rise and Fall of American Growth), Margaret Jacob (author of Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West), Richard Nelson (Columbia), Ashish Arora (Duke), Pierre Azoulay (MIT Sloan), Patrick Collison, and Anton Howes. The program will also include discussion of all of the reading from my high school course, Progress Studies for Young Scholars.

Weekly on Sundays at 4:00–6:30pm Pacific, from September 13 through December 13.

• Enroll now (non–full-time students): $2,400

• Full-time students only: $1,200 (50% off)