There are two fundamentally different approaches to innovation, and each is associated with a distinct pattern of discovery over the life cycle. Experimental innovators work by trial an error, and arrive at their major contributions gradually, late in life. Conceptual innovators make sudden...

The discipline of economics has traditionally refused to study the behavior and achievements of specific individuals. Yet creativity – a primary source of the technological change that drives economic growth – is largely the domain of extraordinary individuals or small groups. For the first...