Old technology dominates life much more than we think. We still sit on chairs and eat with utensils that the ancient Mesopotamians would recognize. Beer (early Neolithic), wine (late Neolithic), and tea (1500 BC) are the most popular beverages in the world. Boeing’s 787 would be worthless without a 4th millennium BC artifact: the wheel. As Robert Sutton says in his book Weird Ideas That Work, “All the excitement about building better products and companies can make us forget that most new ideas are bad and most old ideas are good.”
Why The Most Popular Viral Hits Spread Slowly | 250 Words. Nice passage, but about that quote from Sutton: No. If he meant to write “Most good ideas are old,” then okay. But most old ideas were just as bad as most new ideas — it’s just the the lousy ones didn’t stick around.