America runs on innovation. (Sorry, Dunkin’.) As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Fast Company has compiled a compelling collection of stories throughout our history—a mere 31 years—to inspire you and your greatness.
Our journey starts on the launchpad of a space flight and the Herculean, mission-critical software that underpins its success. From there, we climb aboard a warship docked in San Diego for a naval commander’s leadership class, listen in on Steve Jobs in his living room, and marvel at how a former manufacturer of wire baskets for bagel shops reinvented itself as a precision manufacturer. Then you’ll be transported to Disney World, where you’ll see the corporate infighting it sometimes takes to make magic. And you’ll visit a $20,000 house that you’ll wish you lived in.
Before we’re through, we’ll redesign overlooked objects from the vegetable peeler to the “I Voted” sticker; engineer the feat of YouTube stardom with Mark Rober; visit Google DeepMind leader Demis Hassabis and Reddit in the age of AI Hassabis helped create; rethink capitalism; and return to space to consider how our orbital ambitions impact on our lives on Earth.
How’s that for an action-packed holiday weekend filled with adventure . . . that also just happens to make you smarter about how to innovate? Let’s go!
Space flight seems like a hardware problem, but it’s really a software challenge. And that software has to be as perfect as any software can be—and it is. “Consider these stats: The last three versions of the program [that powered the Space Shuttle]—each 420,000 lines long—had just one error each.” This quest for perfection has inspired multiple generations of engineers, and it’ll inspire you too.
Commander Abrashoff upends every preconceived notion of military leadership, promoting a bottom-up philosophy that blends innovative practices with empowered individuals to produce outsized results. After all, as he tells Polly Labarre: “The most important thing that a captain can do is to see the ship from the eyes of the crew.”