The 2010s were a huge shift into the adjacent possible--don't be fooled by "social and mobile." The real story is the rise of APIs, the application programming interfaces that allowed software programs to "borrow" best-in-class software functions for themselves. Rather than program an extensive payment system, "borrow" Stripe's or Plaid's for your app via an API. This slashed development costs by factors of 10 or more; to serve this new need, it became viable to provide cloud computing on demand (AWS, Azure) to host and even run these apps, which dropped the overall costs even further and encouraged more market exploration and specialization. The post-2008 ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) was a Cambrian environment for this stuff: money was cheap and abundant, and building things cost less and less. Moreover, all the new stuff *just worked all the time*, a problem tech had been trying to solve since the earliest days of the Web. The blockchain is trivial in comparison.
Part of the problem with the adjacent possible is that it's usually only apparent in hindsight, and often, to many people, not even then.
Fascinating article. I love the concept of “adjacent possible” and using biological evolution as an analogy for technological innovation. I use it often in my book series and Substack column.
Singularities that differentiate fast and unforeseen. How fun. That's probably my favorite part of life -- that while we experience unexpected heartache, pain, and challenge, we ALSO cannot predict the goodness, gifts, support, and generosity that come our way. Thank you for your ideas. They might be the only type of early morning contemplation I am capable of being deeply interested in and focused on.
I had a mentor in the software business who used to ask, “How do you move the button and change the business,” which seems a simple way to think about the adjacent possible.
This is fascinating and it leads me to an inquiry related to your comment that the adjacent possible expands and contracts. Relative to snakes, and in terms of their adaptive radiations or hunting innovations, it doesn’t seem that there’s been a contraction for them (yet), right? (Presumably even stabilization wouldn’t be perceived as contraction.) If not, then relative to contractions post-expansion, what are the variables you see that result in that contraction and when do you see an expansion expanding and blooming even further? Meaning, what variables or conditions have you noticed that generate either another burst of expansion, multiple bursts of expansion, or a contraction or collapse? I imagine those outcomes all aren’t entirely predictable, but there must be some kind of discoverable forces that would make one outcome more probable than the other? Is this question making sense?
The 2010s were a huge shift into the adjacent possible--don't be fooled by "social and mobile." The real story is the rise of APIs, the application programming interfaces that allowed software programs to "borrow" best-in-class software functions for themselves. Rather than program an extensive payment system, "borrow" Stripe's or Plaid's for your app via an API. This slashed development costs by factors of 10 or more; to serve this new need, it became viable to provide cloud computing on demand (AWS, Azure) to host and even run these apps, which dropped the overall costs even further and encouraged more market exploration and specialization. The post-2008 ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) was a Cambrian environment for this stuff: money was cheap and abundant, and building things cost less and less. Moreover, all the new stuff *just worked all the time*, a problem tech had been trying to solve since the earliest days of the Web. The blockchain is trivial in comparison.
Part of the problem with the adjacent possible is that it's usually only apparent in hindsight, and often, to many people, not even then.
Fascinating article. I love the concept of “adjacent possible” and using biological evolution as an analogy for technological innovation. I use it often in my book series and Substack column.
Singularities that differentiate fast and unforeseen. How fun. That's probably my favorite part of life -- that while we experience unexpected heartache, pain, and challenge, we ALSO cannot predict the goodness, gifts, support, and generosity that come our way. Thank you for your ideas. They might be the only type of early morning contemplation I am capable of being deeply interested in and focused on.
I had a mentor in the software business who used to ask, “How do you move the button and change the business,” which seems a simple way to think about the adjacent possible.
I love this piece, and delight in the evolutionary view of the adjacent possible versus what we can see in one lifetime!
I really enjoyed this article😊
This is fascinating and it leads me to an inquiry related to your comment that the adjacent possible expands and contracts. Relative to snakes, and in terms of their adaptive radiations or hunting innovations, it doesn’t seem that there’s been a contraction for them (yet), right? (Presumably even stabilization wouldn’t be perceived as contraction.) If not, then relative to contractions post-expansion, what are the variables you see that result in that contraction and when do you see an expansion expanding and blooming even further? Meaning, what variables or conditions have you noticed that generate either another burst of expansion, multiple bursts of expansion, or a contraction or collapse? I imagine those outcomes all aren’t entirely predictable, but there must be some kind of discoverable forces that would make one outcome more probable than the other? Is this question making sense?
Steven, I love looking to biology for analogies for our current moment. Well done!
I am now left wondering what a scorpion must taste like to a snake.