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Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney

Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney

De: Phil McKinney
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 Step into the world of relentless creativity with the Killer Innovations Podcast, hosted by Phil McKinney. Since 2005, it has carved its niche in history as the longest-running podcast. Join the community of innovators, designers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are constantly pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. Discover the power of thinking differently and taking risks to achieve success. The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including innovation, technology, business, leadership, creativity, design, and more. Every episode is not just talk; it's about taking action and implementing strategies that can help you become a successful innovator. Each episode provides practical tips, real-life examples, and thought-provoking insights that will challenge your thinking and inspire you to unleash your creativity. The podcast archive: KillerInnovations.com About Phil McKinney: Phil McKinney, CTO of HP (ret) and CEO of CableLabs, has been credited with forming and leading multiple teams that FastCompany and BusinessWeek list as one of the “50 Most Innovative”. His recognition includes Vanity Fair naming him “The Innovation Guru,” MSNBC and Fox Business calling him "The Gadget Guy," and the San Jose Mercury News dubbing him the "chief seer."See http://philmckinney.com Economía
Episodios
  • 3 Innovation Decision Traps That Kill Breakthrough Ideas (And How to Avoid Them)

    3 Innovation Decision Traps That Kill Breakthrough Ideas (And How to Avoid Them)
    Jun 24 2025
    Every breakthrough innovation starts the same way: everyone thinks it's a terrible idea. Twitter was dismissed as "breakfast updates." Google looked "too simple." Facebook seemed limited to "just college kids." Yet these "stupid ideas" became some of the biggest winners in tech history. After 30 years making innovation decisions at Fortune 100 companies, I've identified why smart people consistently miss breakthrough opportunities—and how to spot them before everyone else does. Why Smart People Miss Breakthrough Ideas The problem isn't intelligence or experience. It's that we ask the wrong questions when evaluating new innovations. We filter breakthrough ideas through frameworks designed for incremental improvements, not revolutionary changes. Most innovation decisions fail because of three specific thinking traps that cause us to dismiss ideas with the highest potential for transformation. The 3 Innovation Decision Traps Trap #1: The Useless Filter The Question That Kills Innovation: "What existing problem does this solve?" Why It's Wrong: Breakthrough innovations don't solve existing problems—they create entirely new behaviors and meet needs people don't even know they have. Real-World Example: Airbnb seemed insane when it launched. Staying with strangers? Seeing them in the kitchen? The "problem" it solved—expensive hotels—wasn't what made it revolutionary. It created an entirely new behavior: experiential travel that hotels couldn't provide. The Better Question: "What new human behavior could this enable?" Trap #2: The Simplicity Dismissal The Question That Kills Innovation: "Where are all the features? This looks too basic." Why It's Wrong: Simplicity isn't a lack of sophistication—it's the hardest thing to achieve. When something is designed to be insanely simple to use, that signals massive effort and thought behind the design. Real-World Example: Google was just a white page with a search box while Yahoo crammed everything onto their homepage. Google looked unprofessional and incomplete, but it eliminated complexity everyone thought was necessary. The Better Question: "What complexity is this eliminating?" Trap #3: The Market Size Mistake The Question That Kills Innovation: "How big is the addressable market? Why limit yourself so severely?" Why It's Wrong: Breakthrough innovations don't serve existing markets—they create entirely new markets. The biggest opportunities come from ideas that seem too niche or focused. Real-World Example: Facebook was just for college students requiring .edu email addresses. Critics said the market was too narrow. But social media users didn't exist before Facebook—the company created the entire market. The Better Question: "What market could this create?" The Innovation Decision Framework When evaluating ideas that seem "stupid" or "too simple," use this three-question filter: What new behavior could this enable?What complexity could this eliminate?What market could this create? These questions force you to look beyond surface-level problems and features to identify transformational potential. How to Apply This Framework For Investors: Stop asking "What problem does this solve?" Start asking "What behavior does this create?" For Product Teams: Stop adding features. Start eliminating complexity. For Leaders: Stop looking for big existing markets. Start looking for new market creation potential. For Innovators: Stop following what everyone else thinks is smart. Start looking for ideas that violate conventional wisdom. The Pattern Recognition Advantage The current AI boom follows the exact same pattern as the dot-com bubble. Every company is racing to add AI to their pitch, just like they added ".com" in 1999. But the real breakthrough opportunities? They're probably something completely different—ideas that look terrible to everyone following the AI herd. The companies that will win are those that can recognize breakthrough potential when it violates everything the market thinks is smart. The Courage to Act on "Stupid" Ideas Recognition is only half the battle. The hardest part is having the courage to act on opportunities when they contradict expert opinion and market consensus. The biggest question isn't whether you can spot these opportunities—it's whether you'll have the conviction to pursue them when everyone else thinks they're terrible ideas. Because twenty years from now, someone will be writing about the "stupid idea" they missed in 2025 that became the next trillion-dollar company. Want the Behind-the-Scenes Story? This framework came from some painful (and expensive) lessons about dismissing breakthrough ideas. I share the full story—including how I wrote off the team that created Twitter after Apple destroyed their original business—in this week's Studio Notes. Listen to the full analysis: Subscribe to the Killer Innovations podcast for deeper dives into innovation decision frameworks. See the framework in action: Watch my case ...
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    15 m
  • The $1.2 Billion Innovation Disaster: 5 Decision Mistakes That Kill Breakthrough Technology (HP WebOS Case Study)

    The $1.2 Billion Innovation Disaster: 5 Decision Mistakes That Kill Breakthrough Technology (HP WebOS Case Study)
    Jun 10 2025
    In 2011, HP killed a $1.2 billion innovation in just 49 days. I was the Chief Technology Officer who recommended buying it. What happened next reveals why smart people consistently destroy breakthrough technology—and the systematic framework you need to avoid making the same mistake. HP had just spent $1.2 billion acquiring Palm to get WebOS—one of the most advanced mobile operating systems ever created. It had true multitasking when iOS and Android couldn't handle it, an elegant interface design, and breakthrough platform technology. I led the technical due diligence and recommended the acquisition because I believed we were buying the future of mobile computing.We launched it on the HP TouchPad tablet. Then, the CEO killed it just 49 days after launch. Here's a question that should keep every innovation leader awake at night: How do you destroy breakthrough technology worth over a billion dollars in less than two months? The answer isn't what you think. It's not about bad technology, poor market timing, or insufficient resources. It's about systematic thinking errors that intelligent people make when evaluating innovation under pressure. And these same patterns are happening in companies everywhere, right now. I'm going to show you exactly how this happens, why your company is vulnerable to the same mistakes, and give you a proven framework to prevent these disasters before they destroy your next breakthrough innovation. On my Studio Notes on Substack, I share the personal story of watching this unfold while recovering from surgery. In this episode, I want to focus on the systematic patterns that caused this disaster and the decision framework that can prevent it. Here's my promise: by the end of this episode, you'll understand the five thinking errors that consistently destroy innovation value, you'll have a complete decision framework to avoid these traps, and you'll know exactly how to apply this to your current innovation decisions. Because here's what this disaster taught me: intelligence doesn't predict decision quality. Systematic thinking frameworks do. The Pattern That Destroys Billion-Dollar Innovations Let me start with the fundamental problem that makes these disasters predictable. When the HP Board hired Leo Apotheker as CEO, they created what I call a "cognitive mismatch," and it reveals why smart people make terrible innovation decisions. Apotheker came from SAP, where he'd run a $15 billion software company. HP was a $125 billion technology company with breakthrough mobile platform technology. The board put someone whose largest organizational experience was half the size of HP's smallest division in charge of evaluating platform innovations he'd never encountered before. But here's the crucial insight: the problem wasn't his experience level. The problem was how his professional background created mental blind spots that made him literally unable to see WebOS as an opportunity. Here's what's dangerous: Apotheker couldn't see WebOS as valuable because his entire career taught him that software companies don't do hardware. His brain was wired to see hardware as a distraction, not an advantage. To him, WebOS represented exactly the kind of hardware business he wanted to eliminate. Your expertise becomes your blind spot. You literally can't see opportunities outside your professional comfort zone. And this is the first critical principle: Your job background creates mental filters that determine what opportunities you can even see. And this pattern is happening in your company right now. Your finance team evaluates platform investments using metrics designed for traditional products. Your marketing team rejects concepts they can't explain with existing frameworks. Your engineers dismiss breakthrough ideas that don't fit current technical roadmaps. The pattern is always identical: intelligent people using the wrong thinking frameworks to evaluate breakthrough technology. Let me show you exactly how this destroys innovation value. The Five Systematic Thinking Errors That Kill Innovation WebOS died because of five predictable cognitive errors that occur when smart people evaluate breakthrough technology under pressure. These aren't unique to HP—I've seen identical patterns destroy innovation value across multiple industries. Error #1: Solving the Wrong Problem The most dangerous mistake happens before you evaluate any options: framing the wrong decision question. Apotheker was asking "How do I transform HP into a software company?" when the strategic question was "How do we build competitive advantage in mobile computing platforms?" When you optimize solutions for the wrong problem, you get excellent answers that destroy strategic value. The Warning Sign: Your team jumps straight to evaluating options without questioning whether you're solving the right challenge. Error #2: Identity-Driven Decision Making Your professional background creates systematic blind spots about breakthrough ...
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    30 m
  • Your Child's Creative Brain on AI: The Emergency Parents Don't See

    Your Child's Creative Brain on AI: The Emergency Parents Don't See
    Jun 3 2025
    University of Washington researchers discovered something that should concern every parent: children who use AI to create can no longer create without it. And here's the concerning part: most parents have absolutely no idea it's happening. If you've been following our series on Creative Thinking in the AI Age, you know I've been tracking how artificial intelligence is rewiring human creativity. We've explored the 30% decline in creative thinking among adults, the science of neuroplasticity, and practical exercises to rebuild our creative capabilities. But today's episode is different. Today, we're talking about your child's developing brain. And I need to be direct with you—the next 30 minutes might be the most important parenting conversation you have this year. Because while we've been worried about AI taking our jobs, it's already changing our children's minds. Unlike us adults, who developed our creative thinking before AI existed, our kids are growing up with artificial intelligence as their creative co-pilot from the very beginning. Here's my promise to you: by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to tell if your child is developing AI dependency, you'll understand why their developing brain is more vulnerable than yours, and you'll have an assessment tool to evaluate your family's situation—plus immediate strategies you can start using today. But first, let me show you what's happening in homes just like yours—and why this is both preventable and completely reversible. The Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight A few weeks ago, a mother shared a story that stopped me in my tracks. Her 10-year-old daughter used to spend hours drawing elaborate fantasy worlds, completely absorbed in her creative process. Now, when her mother suggests drawing something, the daughter responds, 'Can I just use AI to make it look better?' At first, this seemed like smart efficiency—why not use available tools? However, when the mother asked her daughter to draw a simple picture with no digital help, something alarming occurred. The child just stared at the blank paper and started crying, unable to create anything on her own. This story isn't unique. It's happening everywhere, and parents are missing it because the signs look like success. Before we go further, let me be clear: this isn't your fault. AI dependency developed gradually, and most parents missed the early signs because they actually looked positive. Think about your own child for a moment. Has their homework gotten easier? Do they finish writing assignments faster than they used to? Are their projects suddenly more polished? If you answered yes, you might be looking at what I call the "homework mirage." Here's what the homework mirage looks like: Your child sits down to write a story for English class. Instead of staring at the blank page like kids have done for generations, they open ChatGPT. They type: "Write me a story about a brave knight." In thirty seconds, they have three paragraphs that would have taken them an hour to write. You see the finished assignment. It's well-written, grammatically correct, and creative. You think, "Great! They're learning to use technology efficiently." But here's what you don't see: your child's brain just missed a crucial workout. Remember in our first episode when we talked about brain pathways being like muscles? When we don't use them, they weaken. This is happening to children at a speed that concerns researchers worldwide. (Reference: Newman, M. et al., 2024, "I want it to talk like Darth Vader: Helping Children Construct Creative Self-Efficacy with Generative AI," University of Washington) Dr. Ying Xu from Harvard put it perfectly when she asked the critical question: "Are they actually engaging in the learning process, or are they bypassing it by getting an easy answer from the AI?" And here's the concerning part—kids who use AI to complete tasks do produce higher quality work in the short term. But when you take the AI away, their abilities are worse than before they started using it. But this goes way beyond homework. Children are experiencing what experts call the "Creative Confidence Crisis." Kids who used to love making art now say, "I'm not good enough" when they see AI-generated images. Children ask AI to help with simple creative tasks, such as making up games or telling stories. The scale of this problem is significant. Recent research shows that 31% of teenagers are already using AI to create pictures and images. Sixteen percent are using it to make music. And parents? Most have no idea how much their children are depending on these tools. As one researcher told me, "Parents and teachers are pretty much out of the loop, so young people are using AI platforms with virtually no guidance." This brings us to a crucial question: Why are children more vulnerable to this than adults? Why Your Child's Brain Is at Risk In our second episode, we explored neuroplasticity—your brain's ability to ...
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    29 m
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