

In Pursuit of Radical Innovation - mhashim
http://radicalinnovation.pen.io/

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frisco
I'm sorry, but Fabricly isn't "radical innovation". Radical innovation in the
sense we understand it right now, as espoused by Peter Thiel and company,
means taking the focus _off_ of social shopping and the rest of all the _crap
that doesn't matter_ and getting excited about things like synthetic biology
and going to Mars.

The subtleties of the comparison between Vente-Privee and Fabricly simple
don't matter. Casual gaming may print cash, but no matter how rich you become,
you still can't buy your way out of cancer. That's what "radical innovation"
means.

Radical innovation is not about making things more efficient, or simpler, or
easier, in broad terms. It's about investing in transformative technologies.

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mhashim
_Radical innovation is not about making things more efficient, or simpler, or
easier, in broad terms. It's about investing in transformative technologies._

I agree with you that radical innovation doesn't come from just making things
more efficient/simpler/easier, and I've argued that such a mindset yields
local max solutions. The example of Fabricly was only used to display how an
approach that addresses the problem from the root and transforms the way an
industry operates is what radical innovation is (not about social shopping).
Your definition seems to confine it to cutting edge industries with cutting
edge technology; however, radical innovation could be in retail/food/other age
old industries as much as it could be in space/biotech. Radical innovation is
ultimately about the transformative result and technology is only a means to
get there.

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tjmaxal
I think this is optimistic at best. There are certain industries, healthcare
for example, where barriers to entry are so high that Innovative approaches
are almost always VERY slow to be adopted. Whereas other markets, like
consumer electronics change almost constantly. My point is you can't just
apply this to all industries equally. Generalizations are at best only
speaking to the median.

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mkramlich
Fabricly is just another web-enabled niche market. Calling it radical
innovation devalues the phrase.

