César Hidalgo: observation

Transcript context

…No, I think experiential learning is important to transmit that tacit knowledge. And I think you have stories of people that have that intuition and that have been successful because they have developed careers following that intuition. 1 example that comes to mind, you know, is did you watch Arnold's documentary? Arnold Schwarzenegger had a fantastic documentary No, on no. A 3 part documentary that basically goes through his entire life. So the first part is about him as a bodybuilder, the second part as him as a movie actor, and the third part as a politician. And there's a constant in the documentary that says like, look, I wanted to become the best bodybuilder in the world. If you wanna become the best bodybuilder in the world, you have to be with the best. So I figured out that the best were in California, so I moved to California and I became the best. Then, you know, I wanted to become the best paid actor in the history of Hollywood. So you have to work with the best. So you know, like I I had money that I had saved from my bodybuilding activities, I had real estate that could keep me alive so I could, you know, be picky about the roles, and I wanted to work with the best. And eventually, 10 years later, he or 15 years later, he becomes the best paid actor in Hollywood and he accomplishes everything that he has set his mind to. But he's very conscious that the only way to do there is not by figuring it out on his own on a quiet room on the back of his house, it's by trying to make sure that he's with the best. And when it comes to politics, he was part of the Kennedy family. You know, he he marries Maria Shriver like early on and he learns from the Kennedys for you know, more than a decade before he decides to run for governor of California. So again, you know, you learn from the best. The example I have in the book is that of Samuel Slater, which is a local lad, know, and it's truly a hero. And this is a guy that is born in The Midlands at the time that The Midlands were the place that had for the first time figured out how to do water powered cotton spinning. That was a devilishly difficult technology. The first patents for water powered cotton spinning are from the 17 thirties. They tried to build a mill in Birmingham, it doesn't work. Another in Northampton, it doesn't work either. About 50 years have to pass after that for people like Arkwright and Strat to develop water power corner spinning in, you know, first in Cromford, which is a very small town but that had, you know, water power. And then eventually they created mills in Derby and Belper and so forth. Now, Samuel Slater, you know, is born at the time that these mills are first being erected. And he joins 1 of Stratz mills at the age of 14. He's very smart, becomes an overseer, and at the age of 21, he says, okay, know, I know this business and I know that I'm not gonna make it in this business because this technology is just spreading like wildfire. rt, becomes an overseer, and at the age of 21, he says, okay, know, I know this business and I know that I'm not gonna make it in this business because this technology is just spreading like wildfire. Everybody figured out how to build these mills, you know, but in The US they have not figured that out. So he escapes, you know, Belper in the middle of the night without telling a soul. He goes into London. In London he boards a ship pretending to be a farmer and he lands, you know, in New York 66 days later. He goes into a mill that was in Manhattan. He immediately sees that the machines were no good, they had no water power, so he quits after 4 days. And then he learns from a sloop captain that there was a man in Pawtucket that was trying to develop water power cotton spinning technology, but they were not able to produce yarn of good enough fineness and strength. Know the thing about cotton yarn, like the 1 that we have in our jeans, is that to resist the tension of the loom it has to be very well spun. And if you manually spin cotton, you cannot produce jeans or fabric of that type because it would just snap under the tension of the loom. So he moves to Pawtucket, you know, and eventually, you know, developed the first water power spinning in The United States within a period of about a year, and it starts the American Industrial Revolution and mills start to spread there just like before. So it's a very good example of that embodiment of knowledge. Like the the people in Pawtucket had tried to develop water power cut or spinning based on hearsay. There is this story, you know, from from the book where I where I got that story that there were some Scotsman that had seen 1 of Arkwright's meals and they had told these other guys how they worked. But based on that hearsay, they were not able to develop it. You had to have someone that had that experiential knowledge, you know, that had worked with the best, with Arkwright and Stratt, to come all the way to The US in an act of treason because it was a punishable act of treason to bring that technology to America to eventually be able to build that capability. You're strongly asserting that there is a huge physical component. There's embodiment to the propagation of knowledge, way it flows, ebbs, and decays. Know, everyone can access GitHub. People on the other side of the world can start playing with software. So do you think at some point at least the propagation of knowledge becomes more virtual?…

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