How to be more innovative | Sam Schillace (Microsoft deputy CTO, creator of Google Docs)

1. Pursue Work You Feel Guilty Getting Paid For

If you derive pleasure from doing something people are willing to pay you for, dedicate yourself to doing it exceptionally well and with intense effort. We often undervalue tasks that feel easy and fun, but these are often areas where you can achieve the highest impact.

2. Embrace an Optimistic Growth Mindset

Consciously choose to be optimistic and focus on possibilities rather than limitations. The speaker notes that he has personally missed out more by being pessimistic than by being too optimistic, suggesting it’s a more beneficial habit for personal and professional growth.

3. Ask ‘What If’ Questions

Actively shift from asking ‘why not’ questions, which focus on limitations, to ‘what if’ questions that explore the full potential and implications of an idea. This mindset helps overcome the natural human tendency to reject disruptive concepts and unlocks new possibilities.

4. Test Ideas Cheaply and Quickly

Make it easy and inexpensive to conduct experiments and try out new ideas rapidly. This approach fosters an optimistic environment for exploration and learning without requiring significant initial investment.

5. Embrace Failure and Experimentation

Cultivate a willingness to take risks and view errors as opportunities for learning and growth, adopting the motto ‘from error comes virtue.’ Don’t be afraid to make mistakes or have ‘dumb’ ideas, as this open approach is essential for achieving extraordinary results.

6. Prioritize Significant User Value

Ensure your products solve a real problem and provide substantial user value, ideally making their life ‘10x better.’ Users are inherently ’lazy’ and will only adopt something if the total effort required is significantly less than the resulting ease or benefit it provides.

7. Identify Disruptive Ideas by Binary Reaction

Recognize truly disruptive and impactful ideas by the strong, bifurcated reactions they elicit (people either passionately love them or intensely hate them), rather than moderate indifference. This ’love it or hate it’ signal indicates potential impact, even if initial opposition is strong.

8. Minimize Onboarding Friction

Reduce friction as much as possible in the onboarding process, especially for consumer products, to encourage immediate adoption. The goal is to convince users of value within 15-30 seconds, so eliminate any unnecessary barriers.

9. Be Receptive to Surprising Results

Maintain an optimistic and open mindset during experiments to notice unexpected outcomes, even if the initial test didn’t work as planned. These surprising results can lead to new discoveries and valuable insights that might otherwise be missed.

10. Set ‘North Stars’ for Tech Exploration

When exploring new technologies, define specific, even arbitrary, ’north stars’ or goals to aim for, such as building a specific tool or solving a particular problem. This focused approach helps produce valuable insights and prevents aimless experimentation.

11. Build AI-Native Products

Focus on developing applications and solutions that fundamentally require AI and treat it as a core platform, rather than simply adding AI as a feature to existing products. This platform-first approach is key to unlocking transformative and massive value.

12. Anticipate ‘Free Pixels’ from AI

Understand that AI is making ‘pixels free,’ drastically reducing the cost and effort to produce digital content and dynamic user interfaces. This fundamental shift will disrupt industries and change how software is built, similar to how the internet made information distribution free.

13. Prepare for Intent-Driven Interfaces

Anticipate a future where products are more dynamic, intentional, semantic, fluid, and personalized. Users will increasingly expect to communicate their intent to applications and have them intelligently configure themselves, making static UIs feel anachronistic.

14. Develop a Broad Technical Perspective

Gain familiarity with a wide range of tools and technologies, including unusual combinations, and cultivate a broad, full-stack perspective. This interdisciplinary knowledge can often lead to unique insights and innovative product ideas.

15. Be Rigid on Mission, Flexible on Feedback

As an entrepreneur or product builder, maintain a rigid commitment to your core mission and where you’re going, but remain highly flexible and open to feedback on how to achieve it. This balance is crucial for navigating challenges and building successful products.

16. Learn New Tech by Building

The most effective way to learn new technologies, such as AI, is to pick a specific, even challenging, project or problem to solve using that technology. This hands-on approach provides practical experience and deeper understanding.

17. Listen for Career Pivots

Be attentive to moments when others see value in what you enjoy doing, even if it doesn’t align with your perceived career path. Be open to these ‘surprises’ and consider pivoting your career to leverage these strengths for greater fulfillment and impact.

18. Excel in Any Role

Regardless of your current job, strive to bring your unique self to the role and perform it to the best of your ability. This approach fosters greater enjoyment, success, and personal growth, even in seemingly mundane tasks.

19. Don’t Dismiss New Tech Too Soon

Avoid being overly pessimistic or quick to dismiss new technologies, even if they initially appear to be ’toys’ or have limitations. Many disruptive innovations were underestimated in their early stages, so maintain an open mind.