You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
Charles KetteringRead
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
Interpretation
Inventing involves creativity and resourcefulness; using intelligence can reduce the necessity for physical materials.
In this quote, Charles Kettering emphasizes the important relationship between intellect and innovation. He suggests that the more we rely on our cognitive abilities—the 'brains' we utilize—the less we need to depend on physical inputs or materials to create something new. This highlights the power of ideas and creativity in the invention process, implying that innovative thinking is often more valuable than the resources at hand.
In practice
In a speech about innovation at a tech conference.
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
It is the 'follow through' that makes the great difference between ultimate success and failure, because it is so easy to stop.
When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I'd place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: "Leave slide rules here." If I didn't do that, I'd find someone reaching for his slide rule. Then he'd be on his feet saying, "Boss, you can't do it."
A research problem is not solved by apparatus; it is solved in a man's head.
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
I often say that research is a way of finding out what you are going to do when you can't keep on doing what you are doing now.
Few industries have the ability to transform society like tech, yet too few companies are asking the questions or working on the problems that would create meaningful social change.
AI-assisted driving is a perfect platform for advancing fundamental human-centric artificial intelligence research while also producing practical applications.
It really matters whether people are working on generating clean energy or improving transportation or making the Internet work better and all those things. And small groups of people can have a really huge impact.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
If you go back back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic - being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.
Each new tool we create ends an old relationship with the world and starts a new one. And we're changed by that relationship, inevitably. It changes the way we live, changes our patterns, changes our social organization.
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