Why divergent thinkers beat geniuses in the real world, David Epstein

Dont take the prodigy pathway. David Epstein says become a broad thinker instead. Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube Get smarter, faster with our playlist The idea for Nintendos Game Boy system was born from a philosophy that had a much less catchy name: lateral thinking with withered technology. The term was coined by Gunpei Yokoi, a Nintendo employee who started at the company with a similarly dry job: machine maintenance worker. One day, a Nintendo executive noticed that Yokoi had built a simple extendablearmgrabber toy in his free time. Lets sell it, the executive said. It became a small hit. Yokoi was eventually promoted to help build out the companys video game business. But he recognized that he didnt have the expertise to advance the cutting edge of the video game world. So he decided on a very specific str