Steve Jobs sold barely 100 computers a month at NeXT — and told his team they'd sell 100,000. This is the decade everyone skips.

Author Geoffrey Cain joins Aidan McCullen for part two on Steve Jobs in Exile, the story of the wilderness years between Jobs' 1985 ousting from Apple and his return. Cain reframes the NeXT era not as a triumphant hero's journey but as a cascade of failure, ego and self-sabotage that quietly forged the leader Jobs became.

In this conversation, Geoffrey reveals:

• Why the "reality distortion field" stopped working the moment the $6,500 NeXTcube shipped
• How Jobs sabotaged an IBM deal that could have made NeXTSTEP, not Windows, the world's operating system
• The airport moment he abandoned his own salesman in front of 800 IBM engineers
• Why he killed Ross Perot's pipeline to the CIA, NSA and Pentagon with five words: "I don't like the feds"
• How a Daffy Duck demo blew up a Disney deal worth thousands of computers
• Why Tim Berners-Lee built the entire World Wide Web on a single NeXTcube in 1990
• How the creators of Doom were turned away because Jobs "didn't like games"
• The advisor's warning Jobs ignored for a decade: "your assets have feet"
• Why putting on a grey suit to sell enterprise software was the moment he finally grew up
• The random mid-level phone call — not Jobs' idea — that put him back on the road to Apple

Chapters: 00:00 Think beyond use cases 00:38 Sponsor message 01:03 Part two begins 01:54 NeXT revenge era 03:48 Reality distorts back 04:56 Cube launch hype 05:59 Sales reality check 06:48 Founder market lesson 08:04 The hero–shithead rollercoaster 12:09 Carrot and stick leadership 13:25 Assets have feet 14:57 Co-founders depart 17:50 Buggy cube problems 18:53 Writing the donut hole 19:57 Canon investment drama 21:33 IBM deal sabotage 25:40 Ross Perot fallout 28:13 No feds market 28:48 Disney deal blow-up 31:03 NeXT powers the web 32:32 Doom and missed gaming 33:28 Lesson for AI builders 35:32 Motorola dumps NeXT 38:40 Rock bottom pivot 40:07 Enterprise sales Jobs 43:34 WebObjects breakthrough 48:06 Pixar vindication 51:05 Phone call to Apple 54:47 Wrap up and sponsor

About Geoffrey Cain: Geoffrey Cain is an author and investigative journalist. His book Steve Jobs in Exile chronicles the NeXT and Pixar years, and he also wrote Samsung Rising. Website: https://geoffreycain.net Substack (The Burner Files): https://geoffreycain.substack.com X: https://x.com/Geoffrey_Cain

About The Innovation Show: The Innovation Show is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Host Aidan McCullen sits down with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, leadership, AI and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for extra content and webinars.

Connect: Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Substack: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

About the Author Geoffrey Cain is an author and investigative journalist, and the author of Steve Jobs in Exile and Samsung Rising. https://geoffreycain.net — https://geoffreycain.substack.com

About the Host Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

Steve Jobs was nearly bankrupt — down to his last $150 million, burning $50 million a year, with every product failing and every investor gone.

Award-winning journalist Geoffrey Cain, author of Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of a Technology Visionary, joins Aidan McCullen to tell the story the official Jobs narrative leaves out: the dozen years between his firing from Apple in 1985 and his triumphant return. Drawing on unbroadcast NeXT footage, new interviews and internal documents, Cain reveals the failures, the revenge and the near-misses that forged the leader who saved Apple.

In this conversation, Geoffrey reveals:

• Why Steve Jobs was three years from bankruptcy in the early 1990s
• The "low-level employees" lie that made Apple sue its own co-founder
• Why the lawsuit backfired and handed Jobs exactly what he wanted
• How a Bill Gates talk about CD-ROMs accidentally named NeXT
• Why revenge on John Sculley — not changing the world — drove the founding of NeXT
• The "hero–shithead rollercoaster" every NeXT executive insisted Cain had to understand
• The "deep shit list" Jobs ran the company on — and the mindset shift that replaced it
• How George Lucas's divorce handed Jobs Pixar at a fire-sale price
• Why Ross Perot bet $20 million on a company with no product
• "Steve on a Stick" — the celebrity sales act that kept NeXT alive

Chapters:

00:00 Failures Before Fame

01:03 Sponsor Message

01:36 NeXT Years Overview

02:50 Meet Geoffrey Cain

06:46 Survivorship Bias Lens

08:59 Near Bankruptcy Stakes

11:50 Fired From Apple 1985

14:37 Summer In Exile

19:11 Rival Jean-Louis Gassée

22:22 Dan'l Lewin And Education

27:32 Revenge Fuels NeXT

30:52 Apple Sues Steve Jobs

34:37 Lawsuit Backfires

36:23 Naming NeXT

39:02 Betting Careers On Steve

42:08 Pixar Fire Sale Bet

45:28 Working With Steve

46:31 Hero Shithead Rollercoaster

49:11 NeXT Talent Hierarchy

53:14 Luxury Spending Spree

58:32 Ross Perot Big Check

01:02:04 Deep Shit List Management

01:08:28 Canon Optical Disk Gamble

01:13:38 Businessland Sales Fallout

01:17:22 Wrap Up And Sponsor

Find Geoffrey Cain at https://geoffreycain.net, on X at @Geoffrey_Cain and on LinkedIn (GCain).

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Steve Jobs in Exile, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Aidan McCullen hosts world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation, leadership, AI and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

About the Host: Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

One developer. Six months. An $80 million sale to Wix. That's not the future of work — it's already here.

In this special panel from the Kyndryl Institute and The Innovation Show, host Aidan McCullen brings together four of the world's sharpest minds on strategy, innovation and disruption to explain why most leaders are using AI completely wrong — and what to do instead. Rita McGrath (Columbia, author of The Entrepreneurial Mindset and originator of "transient advantage"), Alexander Osterwalder (creator of the Business Model Canvas, CEO of Strategyzer), Ismail Amla (SVP at Kyndryl, author of From Incremental to Exponential) and Usman Sheikh (author of Frame Break, MD of High Output Ventures) map how work, value and power are being redrawn.

In this conversation, the panel reveals:

• Why painting over a rusty gate explains how most companies are misusing AI
• How a single developer sold an $80 million company to Wix after six months of solo work
• What Jensen Huang does every Sunday night to stay connected to NVIDIA's front line
• Why Bayer put its whole workforce on 90-day cycles — and how it kills office politics
• The "verification bottleneck" that quietly cancels out every speed gain from AI
• Why one firm tracking staff AI logins for promotions missed the point entirely
• How the billable hour is dying — and what replaces it
• Why labour arbitrage flipped from advantage to liability in just twelve months
• What a Korean fintech founded by a dentist (Toss) teaches us about permissionless teams
• Where incumbents still hold a moat that AI-native startups can't touch

Chapters: 00:00 AI Moment Opens

00:35 Meet The Panel

02:20 Rewiring Organisations

03:36 Rusty Gate Lesson

04:25 Entrepreneurial CEO Return

06:28 Permissionless Transition

08:39 One-Person Unicorns

10:13 Power Redefined

13:17 Verification Bottleneck

15:46 Agents In The Enterprise

20:22 Gaming AI Metrics

22:54 Death Of The Billable Hour

24:23 Electricity Era Analogy

26:18 Business Model Fundamentals

28:04 Rethinking Business Models

29:04 AI Native vs Legacy

29:49 Services Industry Upended

33:40 First Steps For Incumbents

37:51 Toss And Team Autonomy

41:17 Incentives And Accountability

45:42 Incumbent Data Moats

47:50 Elevator Pitches And Wrap-Up

The panel: Rita McGrath — https://www.ritamcgrath.com

Alexander Osterwalder / Strategyzer — https://www.strategyzer.com

Ismail Amla, From Incremental to Exponential — https://www.kyndryl.com

Usman Sheikh, Frame Break — https://highoutputventures.com

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack : https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Each week, Aidan McCullen sits down with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners to explore disruption, innovation, change, leadership, AI and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

About the host: Aidan McCullen — 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

Follow and subscribe:

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

What if the best practices taught in every business school are quietly destroying the organisations that follow them? Eric Ries — author of Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange — joins Aidan McCullen to expose the hidden forces that corrupt mission-driven organisations, and to reveal the structural defences that keep outliers like Costco immune.

About Eric Ries Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and the bestselling author of The Lean Startup. His new book, Incorruptible, maps the structural forces that destroy company missions and lays out a blueprint for building organisations that resist them. He is also the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE).

About Aidan McCullen Aidan McCullen is a Thinkers50-recognised host, keynote speaker, author of Undisruptable, and former professional athlete. He is the founder and host of The Innovation Show — the podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes.

In this conversation, Eric reveals:

• Why mission drift and bureaucracy are really corruption — and why naming them that changes everything
• How financial gravity silently pulls every organisation toward value extraction unless actively resisted
• The professor story that launched the book — and the question that haunts every founder: is it even possible to build an incorruptible organisation?
• The LTSE ambush: how Eric's team chose potential bankruptcy over compromising their principles — and why that decision ultimately saved the company
• Why the founder hero story and the market story are the same story told backwards — and how that confusion destroys organisations from the inside
• The golden goose paradox: why Sol Price and Robert Owen kept losing control of the very organisations they built
• The Costco governance fortress — how Jim Sinegal created a structure that protects the fiduciary-to-the-customer ethos no matter how hard Wall Street pushes back

00:00 Sponsor Message 00:26 Naming Corruption 02:32 Why Best Practices Fail 05:08 Professor Story Wake Up Call 09:57 Financial Gravity And Strength 12:26 LTSE Ambush And Principles 19:14 Founder Hero Vs Market Story 23:56 Golden Goose And Case Studies 25:19 Sol Price And Robert Owen 30:46 Costco Governance Fortress 33:15 Wrap Up And Resources 34:26 Sponsor Outro

Guest links:

• Book: https://amzn.to/4e89kOx
• More resources: https://www.incorruptible.co/resources/more-failures

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Incorruptible, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Subscribe and follow: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"I don't like J work."

That was Andy — a top serial innovator at SAIC — telling his manager Dennis what he needed to be protected from. J work, in Andy's field of computational electromagnetics, is the imaginary part of a number. To Andy, it meant the imaginary work: staff meetings, budget reviews, formal reporting. Dennis's job was to keep him in real work. Most managers do the opposite.

In part three of our Serial Innovators series, Bruce Vojak closes the loop. After two episodes on who serial innovators are and how they navigate the politics, this one is about how organisations find them, develop them — and how managers can stop accidentally driving them out the door.

Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering.

In this conversation, Bruce reveals:

• Why mechanistic, CV-screening HR processes — and now AI-powered hiring filters — systematically screen out your future innovators • The four engagement filters that actually identify a serial innovator: how they engage with problems, projects, business, and people • The five core traits — systems thinking, above-average (but not extreme) creativity, innate curiosity, deep-expertise intuition, and the intrinsic drive to make things better • Why π-shaped (pi-shaped) workers — broad across domains AND deep in multiple specialisms — beat T-shaped specialists • Why innovators spot innovators — and why your best HR move is letting your existing serial innovators sit in on hires • The career-phase development model: hard problems early, breadth via exposure, apprenticeship over mentorship, and burnout as a real risk if you don't choose your battles • Golden handcuffs — and the "fur-lined mousetrap" most serial innovators eventually walk into • The Dennis-and-Andy story at DEMACO/SAIC — and what Dennis did right that almost every other manager gets wrong • The pheasant hunting in Iowa metaphor — why over-managed budgets leave no nesting ground for the future of your business • The five things a manager has to do — air cover, patience, running interference, no bureaucratic J work, no daily progress reports • Why phase-gate control is the slow death of breakthrough innovation • Where Bruce respectfully diverges from Clay Christensen on whether innovation can survive inside the organisation — or has to be spun out • The incentive traps that quietly destroy serial innovators — and why "I'm doing what's best for the company and you're giving me crap for it" is the line every serial innovator says to themselves at least once

Chapters: 00:00 Executive Innovator Balance 00:37 Sponsor Message 01:03 Serial Innovators Intro 01:08 HR Screening Problem 03:02 Four Engagement Filters 04:46 Engaging With Problems 05:28 Projects Tenacity 06:29 Business Mindset 07:16 People And Customers 08:33 Research Method War Room 10:46 Five Core Traits 12:12 Innovators Spot Innovators 14:05 Career Phases 0 To 10 17:06 Hard Problems Early 17:58 Apprenticeship Model 18:52 Burnout And Choosing Battles 22:33 Innovator Versus Inventor 24:24 Nurturing Through Exposure 27:05 Budget Barriers Story 29:59 AI Hiring And Hidden Signals 31:44 HR Triads And Policy Limits 33:04 Golden Handcuffs Risk 34:34 Managing For Impact Setup 35:52 Relational Management Style 37:41 Innovation As Dance 38:09 Incentives And Motivation 40:51 Demco SAIC Case Study 44:08 Pheasant Metaphor Budgets 47:12 Avoiding J Work 49:55 Manager Air Cover Tips 52:03 Phase Gates And Control 55:53 Ego And Incentive Traps 59:54 Christensen Inside Vs Spinout 01:03:58 Pi Shaped Innovators 01:08:16 No Excuses Innovation Preview 01:11:33 Wrap Up And Where To Find

About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms. Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms

About The Innovation Show The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker, author of Undisruptable — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

About the host Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable (Wiley). Learn more or enquire about booking him for a keynote: https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen/

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Follow and listen: Website: https://theinnovationshow.io About the host: https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen/ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"I see dead people."

That was Nancy Dawes' answer when Bruce Vojak asked her how she did it. The chemical engineer who took Olay from a dying brand to a billion-dollar product line wasn't being mysterious — she was telling him she saw patterns no-one else did. And the real burden, she realised, wasn't seeing them. It was getting an entire organisation to see them too.

In part two of our Serial Innovators series, Bruce Vojak returns to unpack the chapter most innovators learn the hard way: the politics. In over 90% of a mature firm, resources, people and management attention are locked onto today's products. Breakthrough innovation has to fight all of it — for capital, for headcount, for strategic oxygen — and that fight is political by design.

Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering.

In this conversation, Bruce reveals:

• The Galileo scenario — why a serial innovator looks at the same data as everyone else and sees a completely different solution
• Why politics loses its negative meaning the moment you realise it is the only way to actually serve the customer
• Strategic coherence vs tactical coherence — and the one question to ask before you push any breakthrough idea into your firm
• "Crossing the bridge" from the naïve view (invention is sufficient, the manager will recognise it) to political pragmatism
• The four elements of trust — competence, reliability, openness, concern — that buy a serial innovator the right to be heard
• Why every breakthrough story Bruce found came from an emergent team, not a pre-formed innovation team
• The "Stone Soup" model of recruiting allies one favour at a time
• The Disneyland queue problem of selling internally — you think you've got buy-in, and then there are ten more people behind the next corner
• Soft influence (planting seeds, telling stories, "people tolerate my conclusions but act on their own conclusions") and hard influence (data, prototypes, signed purchase orders, customer pull-through)
• "The best marketing research is a signed purchase order" — the line Bruce still uses as a filter today
• Buckminster Fuller's outlaw quote, and his trim tab metaphor — how one person, properly placed, can move the whole ship
• Chuck House's HP defiance and the line that captures every serial innovator who ever risked their job for the work: "I wasn't trying to be defiant. I just wanted a success for HP. It never occurred to me it might cost me my job."

00:00 Sponsor Message

00:25 Why Breakthroughs Stall

01:15 Meet Bruce Vojak

02:36 Seeing Hidden Patterns

06:14 Innovation Lenses

09:28 Strategic vs Tactical Coherence

10:37 Reframing Politics

11:57 QWERTY Switching Costs

14:27 Owning the Political Work

18:00 Trust and Early Wins

21:14 Crossing the Bridge

30:04 Convincing Many Stakeholders

31:40 Engaging Allies Slowly

33:01 Emergent Teams Not Assigned

38:21 Innovation as Team Sport

39:10 Positioning for Strategy Fit

43:26 Too Many Innovators

44:38 Proof via Purchase Orders

46:25 Outlaw Area and Trim Tab

50:17 Politics Navigation Diagram

53:15 Manager Perspective Teaser

55:46 Wrap Up and Sponsor

About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.

Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com

Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms

About The Innovation Show The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — author of Undisruptable, keynote speaker and former pro athlete — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Kyndryl helps leaders harness AI-powered consulting and managed-service capability for smarter decisions, faster innovation and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Follow and listen: Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

Most companies think innovation is a straight line. Bruce Vojak spent years studying the people who prove otherwise.

Bruce Vojak is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (Oxford University Press). In this bonus episode of The Innovation Show, he joins Aidan McCullen for a focused look at the Hourglass Innovation Model — the descriptive framework that maps how serial innovators actually move from an interesting problem to a flawless product launch.

In this conversation, Bruce reveals:

• Why the Hourglass Model is descriptive, not prescriptive — and why that matters
• How serial innovators often redefine the problem before they solve it
• The Tom Osborne story — how reframing a feminine hygiene brief from diaper to garment changed everything
• Why serial innovators can appear completely unproductive for months — and why that is actually the work
• How they were practising customer empathy and design thinking before those ideas had names
• Why Execute — the stage most firms obsess over — is just one of five tasks
• How to use the model as an honest self-diagnostic: am I doing these things, or is it really the organisation?

Chapter topics

00:00 Hourglass Model Intro

00:31 Stage Gate vs Hourglass

01:15 Redefining the Problem

04:16 Pragmatism and Empathy

06:27 Deep Dive Understanding

07:49 Experiment and Iterate

08:39 Nonlinear Flow Explained

10:02 Org Maturity and Politics

11:47 Normalize and Self Assess

12:53 Wrap Up and Sponsor

About The Innovation Show The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with world-class authors, scientists, and practitioners on disruption, innovation, leadership, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms. Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/

Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms https://amzn.to/4f7Y85q

This episode is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Listen and follow: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"These are the most important people you've never heard of."

After interviewing more than 50 serial innovators inside the world's largest mature companies, Bruce Vojak knows something most boards don't: a tiny minority of people — roughly 1 in 500 inside a large firm — quietly create the breakthrough products that fund everything else. They have no formal mandate. They are often almost fired. And without them, the S-curve flatlines.

Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and a former engineering executive who has spent over a decade studying how breakthrough innovation actually happens inside big organisations. This is part one of a multi-part series with host Aidan McCullen on Bruce's life's work.

In this conversation, Bruce reveals:

• Why the humble carrot peeler is the clearest example of how innovation redefines the basis of competition
• How Tom Osborne at Procter & Gamble almost lost his job twice — before launching the billion-dollar Always Ultra brand
• The Tom Osborne quote every product team should hang on the wall: his products were "love letters to his customers"
• Why it is not marketing, it is "customering" — and why customer-driven beats market-driven every time
• The three roles inside the stage-gate process — inventor, champion, implementer — and why serial innovators play across all three
• Why stage-gate is brilliant for incremental innovation and lethal for breakthrough work
• The MP5 model: motivation, personality, perspectives, preparation, process and politics — what serial innovators bring vs. what they develop
• Why the politics is the work — and why pushing the boulder up the hill is Sisyphean by design
• The hiring insight that changes everything: "I want people who want to do the work innovators do, not people who want to be an innovator"
• How Iain McGilchrist's master and emissary, Charles Handy's S-curves and Thomas Kuhn's paradigms all converge inside one good innovator
• Why early success is a curse — and what to do when your organisation has forgotten how it found its first product

Chapters:

00:00 Why Serial Innovators Matter 00:31 Sponsor and Series Setup 01:11 Meet Bruce Vojak 02:45 Defining Innovation 04:08 Carrot Peeler Breakthroughs 05:54 Market Expansion Examples 07:56 What Is a Serial Innovator 08:44 Hiring and Spotting Innovators 10:32 Curse of Early Success 15:19 Punished for Innovating 17:34 Tom Osborne at P&G 19:53 Digging Deep for Insight 22:18 Bootlegging to Launch Ultra 27:25 When Innovators Check Out 33:17 Incremental vs Breakthrough 36:04 S Curves and Culture Tension 42:03 Stage Gate vs Iteration 43:24 Switch to Video and Diagrams 44:30 Stage Gate Overview 45:09 Stage Gate Basics 46:58 Innovation Roles Explained 48:21 Serial Innovators Across Roles 50:34 Customer Driven Discovery Loop 53:37 Seeing Patterns Metaphors 55:13 Motivation And Role Friction 01:02:50 MP5 Model Origins 01:04:33 Traits Motivation Politics 01:16:07 Innovation Process Diagram 1.7 01:21:57 Wrap Up Sponsor Outro

About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.

Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/

Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms

https://amzn.to/4f7Y85q

About The Innovation Show The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — author of Undisruptable, keynote speaker and former pro athlete — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Follow and listen:

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Organisations love innovation, but they hate their innovators."

Jeff and Staney DeGraff return to The Innovation Show to close out Aidan McCullen's DeGraff trilogy with their book The Art of Change. Their argument is direct: change rarely fails because of bad strategy or weak execution. It fails because leaders bring the wrong mindset — treating change like a linear project when change is actually a paradox to be held.

In this conversation, Jeff and Staney reveal:

• Why the man who saved Operation Warp Speed got passed over for promotion — and what his story tells every innovator about the cost of being right
• The Jonas Salk warning every change-maker should hear: they won't notice, then they'll say you're doing it wrong, then they'll call you unprofessional, then they'll take credit for your work
• Why apathy and alignment are the deadliest signs in any organisation
• The seven core paradoxes of change — and the four-step paradox mindset cycle that breaks the deadlock
• Why facts don't change minds (the Harriet Beecher Stowe story Lincoln told to prove it)
• How Sears actually invented the digital economy and how mindset cost them the future
• Why "deviance first, alignment later" is the funnel every leader gets backwards
• The CIO joke that isn't funny: Career Is Over as soon as you take the job
• Why the first pancake is never a good pancake — and what FAIL really stands for

Chapters: 00:00 Innovation in the AI era 01:03 Sponsor and book intro 01:40 Why change fails 02:36 Trilogy origins 06:12 Paradox and mindset 07:58 Why organisations punish their innovators 10:28 Luis, Rapid X, and Operation Warp Speed 16:52 Meaning over happiness 18:06 Time, not targets 19:45 The paradox mindset cycle 24:34 Marriage and money paradox 28:15 Conflict fuels change 32:27 Missed futures examples 36:44 Practice beats theatre 38:04 Builders versus bureaucrats 41:05 Skin in the game 42:35 Blocked by superiors 43:45 Leaders spot talent 44:49 Disruptors and failure 48:05 Boundaries create freedom 51:43 Innovation needs hideouts 53:59 Stories build culture 59:45 The seven paradoxes explained 01:07:38 Deviance, then alignment 01:13:10 The paradox mindset cycle 01:18:26 Final takeaways and wrap

About Jeff and Staney DeGraff Jeff DeGraff is the "Dean of Innovation" — Clinical Professor of Management at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, founder of the Innovatrium, and author of multiple bestselling books on creative leadership. Staney DeGraff is co-founder of the Innovatrium and Jeff's longtime collaborator. Together they've worked with half the Fortune 500 on what it actually takes to make change stick.

📘 The Art of Change — https://amzn.to/48mhX54

🌐 https://jeffdegraff.com

About The Innovation Show

The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Each week, Aidan sits down with world-class authors, scientists, and practitioners to call out the "Emperor is naked" moments and explore disruption, transformation, leadership, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

Connect 🌐 https://theinnovationshow.io

📨 Substack (and a chance to win a copy of The Creative Mindset): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

Sponsor

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

#ParadoxMindset #JeffDeGraff #TheArtOfChange #Innovation #ChangeManagement #Leadership #TheInnovationShow #AidanMcCullen #Thinkers50 #InnovationPodcast #LeadershipPodcast #DisruptionTheory

Description:

Creativity isn't reserved for geniuses—it's a skill you can learn, practice, and compound over time.

In this episode of The Innovation Show, Aidan McCullen sits down with Jeff and Staney DeGraff to explore their practical framework for everyday creativity: the C.R.E.A.T.E. method. Based on decades of research and real-world application, they break down how innovation actually happens—not through lightning bolts, but through small, iterative wins.

From clarifying the real problem to evaluating ideas effectively, this conversation reframes creativity as a disciplined, learnable process.

Sponsored by Kyndryl, this episode also includes a giveaway for subscribers.

What You'll Learn:

• Why creativity is a learnable skill (not a talent)
• The power of small wins and iterative thinking
• How to identify the real problem before solving it
• Techniques like SCAMPER, analogies, and storyboarding
• Why evaluation—not ideation—often determines success
• How constraints and failure fuel innovation

The C.R.E.A.T.E. Framework:

• Clarify – Define the real problem through iteration
• Replicate – Reapply ideas across domains
• Elaborate – Generate ideas using creative techniques
• Associate – Connect ideas through analogy and systems thinking
• Translate – Turn ideas into compelling stories
• Evaluate – Select the best ideas using structured methods

Timestamps:

00:00 Sponsor and Giveaway 00:45 Creativity as Learnable Skill 04:59 Find Your Creative Rhythm 11:11 Constraints and Small Wins 20:57 Clarify the Real Problem 25:25 Replicate and Reapply Ideas 29:01 Elaborate With Wordplay 36:43 Associate Through Analogies 40:43 Translate Into Story 46:09 Evaluate Ideas Wisely

Featured Book: The Creative Mindset by Jeff & Staney DeGraff

Find the DeGraffs: https://jeffdegraff.com

Aidan McCullen is a Thinkers50 Innovation Award winner, keynote speaker Ireland, and host of The Innovation Show—the only podcast ever to receive a Thinkers50 award.