PART I of II

Vaclav Smil is a unique commentator, combining the skills of a scientific historian and political commentator. He also takes potshots at the likes of Yuval Harari, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk—but refers to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels with approval. 

His recent book, Invention and Innovation [:] A Brief History of Hype and Failure, while technical in parts, is worth the read for the nuggets. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and author of 40 books. He is one of the favourite authors of Bill Gates. Smil has written a unique book on innovation, different from the vast majority offered by business school professors or business leaders. He is as surefooted as a mountain goat in his analyses.

According to Smil, “This book has only modest goals: to remind us that success is only one of the outcomes of our ceaseless quest for invention; that failure can follow initial acceptance; that the bold dreams of market dominance may remain unrealized; and that even after generations of (sometimes intensifying) efforts, we may not be any closer to the commercial applications first envisaged decades ago” [151].

This book is a complement to typical business books on innovation, even classics like Drucker’s 1985 Innovation and Entrepreneurship. How does he define innovation? Smil says that“innovation is perhaps best understood as the process of introducing, adopting, and mastering new materials, products, processes, and ideas” [3].

He surveys the role of innovation over recent history. He cites the example of the greatest theft of intellectual property of the past 50 years: “China is the best recent, and historically unequaled, example of mass-scale innovation based on rapid appropriation of a wide array of foreign inventions” [5]. He reviews the open-door policy initiated in 1979. China’s growth “has been accompanied by wide-ranging and relentless industrial espionage” [5]. While obvious to any knowledgeable observers, it is rarely stated so boldly.

How is innovation measured? Smil refers to the idea of ever-increasing innovation as reflected in the growth of patent filings, but which includes many dubious approved applications [7-8]. Smil views this as a bogus measuring stick. His strength is that he tackles innovation from a more technical standpoint than most analysts—he goes a level deeper, actually examining the content of the patents.

Smil talks about the introduction of leaded gasoline, which was good for engines but not for the environment. “Photochemical smog, first noted in Los Angeles in the 1940s, eventually became a seasonal presence in all large metropolitan regions” [33]. In addition, the economic calculus was that the benefits outweighed the downside. For example, “The invention’s peril [leaded gasoline], evident since the very beginning but hidden under the misleading label of ethyl gasoline, had its worst cumulative effect on children exposed to lead from car exhaust, in the US for six decades between the mid-1920s and the mid-1980s” [35].

Smil examines the rise and fall of DDT, the insecticide that kills mosquitos, which was invented in the 1940s. Smil notes that “in less than two decades of use, it had prevented 500 million deaths from malaria”[39]. In 1972, DDT was banned in the US. Was that based on emotion or data? Smil points out that some saw “the ban as a judgment of emotion and mystique and argued that there was no evidence of harm to people or animals from legitimate DDT uses despite its widespread, high-volume application” [43].

This may have saved some developed country woes, but what about other parts of the world? Smil notes that "by 2019 the disease [malaria] was endemic in eighty-seven countries with about 230 million cases, but Africa’s sub-Saharan countries accounted for 91 percent of all cases” [46]. Why so little success in Africa? Success depends on “multiple measures that prevent, control, and limit the diseased, starting with economic development and including hygiene, surveillance, and treatment” [47].

He talks about the breakthrough regarding refrigeration and air conditioning—now so taken for granted that it’s hard to imagine life without them. In 1931, a patent for “Freon” was granted [53]. The uptake was immediate. By the start of Word War II, “the share of US households owning a refrigerator rose from just 10 percent in 1930 to nearly 60 percent in 1945 and 90 percent in 1952” [53]. Further, “by 1970 about half of all households had air conditioning, and so had more than half of new cars” [53].

During that time, products were devised and launched without much regard for the environmental backdrop. “In the early 1950s, less than a decade after the end of World War II, no country had any strong antipollution policies or movements” [81].

Smil covers the innovation around airships and the Zeppelin, supersonic flight, and the Wright Brothers. Not all innovations reflect progress—they may be more hype than hope. Smil notes that “supersonic flight did not displace subsonic aviation… it is not an inevitable next step in airplane development” [105].