Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure

YUSUF KRANDA
3 min readSep 18, 2024
*

A quick summary with 7 key thoughts

Vaclav Smil critically examines the gap between the grand promises of new technologies and their actual impact. Smil argues that many inventions have been overhyped throughout history, leading to unrealistic expectations about their potential to transform society. He points to examples like nuclear energy and early artificial intelligence, initially hailed as revolutionary but failed to deliver the radical changes promised.

Smil emphasizes that invention and innovation are not the same. While inventions are novel ideas or technologies, innovation is the process of successfully integrating those inventions into society. Many inventions, despite their technical merit, fail to become widely adopted due to economic, cultural, or infrastructural barriers. One example he explores is the Segway, a personal transport device that was expected to revolutionize urban mobility but ultimately didn’t gain traction due to cost, practicality, and lack of demand.

The book also highlights the slow, incremental nature of true innovation. Technologies like electricity, the internet, and modern computers, often seen as revolutionary, evolved over long periods with gradual improvements. Smil cautions against expecting quick, transformative breakthroughs, stressing that real…

--

--