Imagine a whirlpool moving up a street. Everything it sees, it swallows. Replace the street with learning and imagine the whirlpool with a person and you have accurately described Larry Page/Bill Gates/Jeff Bezos.
I’m halfway through “In the Plex” and have found studying Google’s progress awe-inspiring. It is amazing how often they’ve taken a look at the status quo, torn it apart, started from scratch, and built something much better. While they are impressive as an organization, I’m amazed at the consistency between the founders of these new age firms that are changing the world.
Out of the 4 biggest technology companies (Facebook is probably getting close really quick) – Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple – a maverick product visionary aside, the founders have all been driven learning machines. To use the term again, it is awe-inspiring to see how they work.
These guys seem to be in a constant loop of – read, observe, synthesize, form an opinion, experiment, review and go back to the drawing board. Depending on the strength of these opinions, the “experiment” can be worth a few billion dollars. We often set a lot of stock on a person’s inherent smartness but, in the long term, it’s a person’s willingness to learn, fail, and reinvent himself/herself that really makes a difference. And, these books have given me an understanding of just how well they’ve mastered that process.
Perhaps it is no wonder that the folks who’ve arguably made the biggest impact in the information age are those who are not only constantly in the lookout for new information to create, prove or disprove a long standing belief/opinion but are also adept at understanding how to make use of the vast magnitude of information that surrounds us.
Driven learning machine will soon be the minimum requirement. We better get on board.
A Learning a Day 