Smart and stupid. They’re opposites, right?
Actually, they might be more connected than we may think.
Sometimes, what we consider stupid may be more unfamiliar-therefore-seemingly-undesirable than lacking intelligence. Sometimes, what starts out as stupid can be re-framed as smart and then becomes standard.
How many people thought we’d all need to walk around with our phones in 1999? Now, people will turn an entire car ride around if they leave theirs at home. (Expecting a call from the Queen, are you?)
On the flip side, how genius were wall phones and “hover boards” and Laserdiscs? …Want one now?
There is a thin line between foolishness and the foolhardiness to brave innovation, and here’s what some of the greatest minds of our time have had to say about it…
12 Quotes About the Connection Between Stupidity & Genius:
- “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” Steve Jobs
- “The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits.” Albert Einstein
- “First he told me it was a stupid idea . . . and then he agreed to come on board.” Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay
- “A lot of people thought it sounded stupid. . . . Even some of our engineers weren’t interested.” Biz Stone, cofounder of Twitter
- “Everything I do people think is stupid.” Seth Godin
- “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Recording Co., rejecting The Beatles, 1962
- “‘Are you crazy? Stick my face on the label of salad dressing?’” Paul Newman
- “When I proposed that idea people laughed at me, saying no one would go to the airport with out a paper ticket. . . . Now everyone does, and it has saved the industry millions of dollars.” David Neeleman, CEO of Jetblue Airways, on the Advent of the electronic Airline ticket
- “We allow no geniuses around our Studio.” Walt Disney
- “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” William Shakespeare
- “Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The trouble makers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Rob Siltanen, made famous by its association with Apple Inc.