Ask HN: How Do Companies Innovate?
For example, you may have seen this before, of 2 cavemen hauling a heavy load with a wheelbarrow with square wheels, with another showing them round wheels - "sorry, we're too busy" they exclaim and off they go: https://www.creativityatwork.com/wp-content/uploads/wheel.png.webp
You see most of my working life (programmer) all I've been is busy; working on projects non-stop as thats what I'm being paid to do - work. I've never once had time to innovate except maybe something minor on the fly. The project managers don't exactly innovate, as they're not tech focused so no one really innovates.
But then I see companies whom are obviously innovating all the time, ie chip companies: the process of 10mm to 7mm to 5mm is mind blowing to say the least, but theres no way they came up with the process on the fly? Did they? They must have had time to think, for a long time.
So how do they do it, are there specialised employees who are paid to sit around and 'ponder'? Are there employees being paid to do nothing but experiment with not a guarantee of ever solving any problem? How do companies actually innovate?