130
FEBRUARY 2013
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
»
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 73
is going to get more money than the
guy who fails—but people who fail are
also sources of innovation, because they
learn a lot from failure.
It’s not just corporations that think
short-term. I was talking to an Ivy
League admissions officer, and I said,
“
Do you believe that people develop
a lot from failure, that knowing how
to bounce back is a very important
predictor of how you do in life?” He said,
“
Absolutely.” Then I asked if his school
had admi ed anybody who had failed
in one respect or another. “Of course
not,” he said. His school was trapped
by rankings. And that’s a kind of idiotic
tyranny. They’re passing up a lot of kids
who could probably do amazing things.
HEMISPHERES:
What is the greatest
innovation in your lifetime?
ZAKARIA:
That’s easy: the World Wide
Web. Once I was writing a cover story
for
Newsweek
and I remembered having
read a biography of Gertrude Bell, the
woman who ran Iraq for the British,
and I recalled that she had wri en an
amazing le er to her father telling him
about the Shias and the Sunnis. I got on
Google and within five minutes I was at
Newcastle University’s website, where
they have every le er in Gertrude Bell’s
own handwriting. Within 15 minutes, I
had exactly what I wanted. Back when
I was ge ing my Ph.D., that would have
taken six months.
HEMISPHERES:
That points to the role of
government in innovation, because it was
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency) that created the
infrastructure of the Internet.
ZAKARIA:
There’s no question the
government has played a huge role in
innovation, and it’s not just the U.S.
The origins of the industrial revolution
have a lot to do with British naval and
military spending. The steam engine
was derived from a modified cannon.
America has always done well in
innovation, but in the past 60 years
it’s been off the charts. By the 1930s,
Germany had won more Nobel Prizes
than America and Britain combined.
Nowwe’re winning all kinds of Nobels.
What changed? First, Europe was
devastated by war. Then Hitler kicked
out all the Jews, who came to America
and did amazing things. But there was
also massive U.S. government spending
THE
HEMI
Q&A:
FAREED ZAKARIA
to fund the war, and that created huge
innovations. Those three things put the
United States in a completely different
league by 1955. We’re now dominating
the world as nobody else has ever done.
HEMISPHERES:
You mentioned the moon
landing—does America’s scaled-down
space program say something about our
willingness to fund innovation?
ZAKARIA:
Yes, absolutely. There should
be a sense of adventure about science;
there should be a sense of curiosity
about what space represents. I hate
to sound corny, but space is the “final
frontier” in that it’s the great unknown.
The process of ge ing to know and
understand it is important.
And it’s not just technological advan-
tages that come from space exploration.
There’s also the process of opening up
your mind and understanding it. We
have become very reluctant to make
those kinds of big investments. It’s not
that we don’t like to spend money—we
spend lots of money—it’s just that we’re
spending it on Medicare, Medicaid,
Social Security and the military. What
we’re not spending it on is innovation.
In a sense, we’re funding consumption,
not investment.
HEMISPHERES:
Last question: Of all the
people you’ve interviewed, who’s the
biggest brain?
ZAKARIA:
Probably Nathan Myhrvold.
Nathan has a dazzling mind and his
range is just incredible. When I’ve had
the opportunity to talk to Bill Gates,
and we get into something about
science, Gates will say, “I wasn’t sure
how to think about that. Then I emailed
Nathan.” If this is the guy Bill Gates
turns to when he wants to understand
something about science, that’s about as
high up the food chain as I need to go.
New York Times
columnist
DAVID CARR
’
s
bona fides as an innovator were cemented
when he put dill pickles on his peanut butter
sandwich at age
6.
“
The ability to interact openly—without
any constraints—is key to innovation.
Which is why I think America still has a
huge advantage.”
