NOTES

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INTRODUCTION: “HOW DO THEY MOVE SO FAST?”

1         world record for the fastest completion: The technical category in which Nathan Parkinson won the world record was “Super Mario All-Stars / NTSC–Super Mario Bros. Minimalist Speed Run.” Super Mario Bros. as played on the Super Mario All-Stars cartridge has a few different quirks from the original NES cartridge, and there is a separate world record for each cartridge. Nate’s record was verified and posted by Twin Galaxies, “World Records: Super Mario All-Stars / NTSC–Super Mario Bros. Minimalist Speed Run,” http://www.twingalaxies.com/operator.php?gameid=5632&platformid=32&variationid=17228 (accessed May 27, 2013).

2         Bundled with the original Nintendo: Super Mario Bros. was bundled with the original NES in 1986, but, intriguingly, no one knows exactly when the game first came out: Frank Cifaldi, “Sad but True: We Can’t Prove When Super Mario Bros. Came Out,” Gamasutra (blog), http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/167392/sad_but_true_we_cant_prove_when_.php.

2         “world’s best-selling video game”: Guinness named Super Mario Bros. the best-selling video game: Guinness Book of World Records, “Best Selling Video Games,” http://web.archive.org/web/20060317005503/http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=52404 (accessed February 15, 2014). However, Wii Sports overtook it in 2013 with over 80 million units sold. Nintendo, “Top Selling Software Sales Units,” http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/software/wii.html (accessed February 15, 2014).

2         Super Mario Bros. has 32 levels: For everything you ever wanted to know about Super Mario Bros., check out Super Mario Wiki, “Super Mario Bros.,” http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_Bros.

4         It took the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller: Rockefeller’s billionaire journey is well-known, but a 1994 New York Times story about his West 54th Street house in New York City (not far from the coffee shop where I typed most of this book) gives the history from a fun angle: Gray, Christopher, “Streetscapes/The Rockefeller City House; Pied-a-Terre off Fifth for a Parsimonious Billionaire,” New York Times, May 22, 1994, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/22/realestate/streetscapes-rockefeller-city-house-pied-terre-off-fifth-for-parsimonious.html.

4         Michael Dell achieved billionaire status: Dell’s billionaire journey is found at “Michael Dell,” Biography, http://www.biography.com/people/michael-dell-9542199.

4         Bill Gates in 12: Gates was officially declared a billionaire by Forbes: “400 Richest People in America,” Forbes, October 1987.

4         Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo: Bloomberg News reported Filo’s billionaire status on July 3, 1998: “Yahoo Founder Attains Billionaire Status,” Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jul/03/business/fi-329. Shortly afterward, Time magazine reported Yang’s billionaire status on October 12, 1998: “No. 6 Jerry Yang,” Time, http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2044757,00.html.

4         It took Pierre Omidyar: Omidyar became a billionaire in 1998. “Pierre Omidyar,” Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/profile/pierre-omidyar/.

4         in the late 2000s: Andrew Mason was a billionaire on paper as of Groupon’s January 2011 venture financing, according to the $15 billion company valuation that was reported by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Evelyn M. Rusli, “Groupon Advances on I.P.O. That Could Value It at $15 Billion,” New York Times, January 13, 2011, http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/groupon-readies-for-an-i-p-o/. Groupon was two years old as of November 2010. (The song I listened to while preparing the previous seven citations: shanesnow.com/song1.)

4         “A serious assessment of the history of technology”: Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” March 7, 2001, http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns (accessed February 15, 2014). A $1.7 million computer in 1990 could do 17 million “computations” per second. By 2003 a standard Dell could do 4 billion calculations per second and cost $1,600. Ritchie King, “The Rise of the Machines,” Popular Science, http://www.popsci.com/content/computing (accessed February 15, 2014).

5         Most large businesses stop growing: Eighty-seven percent of large businesses stop growing, according to researchers Matthew S. Olson and Derek van Bever, Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing—Yours Doesn’t Have To (Yale University Press, 2009).

5         venture capitalists pay bright people: Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor, founded the Thiel Foundation, which offers whiz kids investment money to build companies instead of going to college. Learn more at Thiel Fellowship, “About the Fellowship,” http://www.thielfellowship.org/become-a-fellow/about-the-program/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

7         “If any person or persons”: James Franklin, New-England Courant, December 3, 1772, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0021. The Silence Dogood Letters are found reprinted in various places online, and are also contained in Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood, the Busy-Body, and Early Writings (Library of America, 2002). For an excellent discussion of Franklin’s use of disguise and lateral thinking to disrupt the status quo, see William Pencak, “Representing the Eighteenth-Century World: Benjamin Franklin, Trickster.” Penn State University, http://www.trinity.edu/org/tricksters/trixway/current/vol 3/vol3_1/Pencak2.htm (accessed February 15, 2014). And, of course, no volume compares with Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. It’s available for free via Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/148.

9         You can’t hang around: I cofounded Contently, Inc., with my friends Joe Coleman and Dave Goldberg in December 2010, with the mission of building a better media world through empowering consumers, creators, and brands to tell great stories. During the time I wrote this book, we grew 400 percent in revenue; added 20,000 journalists to our talent network; and raised $9 million in venture capital to expand operations. You can read the story at shanesnow.com/contently.

10       Want to digitize libraries: Yes, filling out those crazy letters on Web sign-up forms helps digitize libraries of old books! “What Is Recaptcha,” Google, http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore (accessed February 15, 2014).

12       The law of the lever: The law is explained simply by Heather Hasan, Archimedes: The Father of Mathematics (Rosen Publishing Group, 2006), 73.

14       Today’s world record: Scott Kessler’s 5:08 speed run time is the fastest Super Mario Bros. game played on any console, according to “World Records: Super Mario Bros. NTSC Minimalist Speed Run,” Twin Galaxies, http://www.twingalaxies.com/operator.php?gameid=411&platformid=23&variationid=5717 (accessed May 27, 2013).

CHAPTER ONE: HACKING THE LADDER

17       The average president of the United States takes office: A breakdown of biographical sources and calculations of the ages, political offices held, and time spent in elected office by each US president can be found at shanesnow.com/presidents. The average age at inauguration of a US president has hovered around 55 since Abraham Lincoln. Founding Fathers and presidents before Lincoln skewed slightly older at a running average of 57 to 58. During the first 100 years of US history, congressmen’s ages averaged in the 40s, crossing 50 in the mid-1800s. If you remove 69-year-old Ronald Reagan from the list (he temporarily evens the score), the average president has been younger than the average senator since 1829. The mean age of each Congress is tracked at “Average Age by Congress and Position,” American Leadership Database, http://www.lifecourse.com/rdb/indicators/age.php (accessed February 15, 2014). However, in 2011 the Wall Street Journal created an excellent interactive infographic of the graying Congress, which displays the information in an easily consumable way and gives a hint of the evolving “game” played throughout Congress’s history: Daniel N. Fehrenbach, Alex Lowe, Kurt Wilberding, and Ana Rivas, “The Capitol’s Age Pyramid: A Graying Congress,” Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-CONGRESS_AGES_1009.html. The average senatorial age, which crept up a few years in the last century, is brought up to the 60s by all the people who stay stuck in the Senate for several terms. Senators tend to enter at about the same time as the typical president and they stay for an average of almost 18 years. (Some, like Daniel Inouye from Hawaii, stay nearly 50!) Slate points out that part of the “graying” of Congress may be because in the 1800s politics was an “up or out” game, and in the years after, it’s become more common to bide one’s time before climbing up, or to treat a single political office as a long-term career: Brian Palmer, “Democracy or Gerontocracy?” Slate, January 2, 2013, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/01/average_age_of_members_of_u_s_congress_are_our_senators_and_representatives.html.

17       Terms in the Senate: Though legislators (senators and representatives) and executives (presidents and vice presidents) are members of two separate branches of government, and though state and federal government offices are technically different “ladders,” the individual offices within them are commonly held in the following descending hierarchy: president, vice president, governor, senator, congressman, state senator, and state representative. Doug Wead elaborates that “How most [politicians] come up” is through a predictably sequential ladder. “The traditional: State Senator, then Majority Leader of the State Senate, now a Delegate to the DNC, now I get one of these openings for Congress and lose, and now I win, and now I look for Senate.”

17       even brand-new senators: First-time senators in the 113th Congress were already 53 years old, on average, when they started, according to Jennifer E. Manning, “Membership of the 113th Congress: A Profile,” Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42964.pdf (last modified January 13, 2014; accessed February 15, 2014). However, when we exclude senators who had previously been US representatives (so we’re only counting senators who switched ladders from other industries), the average age increases to 56. And in the 111th Congress, the average incoming age for new senators overall was 57, according to Jennifer E. Manning, “Membership of the 111th Congress: A Profile,” Congressional Research Service, https://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%260BL)PL%3B%3D%0A (last modified December 27, 2010; accessed February 15, 2014).

18       youth voter turnout: Rock the Vote polls show that 18- to 29-year-old voters actually tend to be nearly as likely to vote in congressional races as in presidential: “Nationwide Baseline,” Rock the Vote, August 24, 2010, http://www.rockthevote.com/assets/publications/research/2010/2010-rock-the-vote-nationwide-baseline.pdf.

18       and the losers in presidential elections: The second-place finishers in presidential races are, on average, 55. Exactly the same as the winners. For a list of losing candidates, see “Also Rans: A Chronological List of Losing Presidential Candidates of the United States,” Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/060_ran_chron.html (accessed February 15, 2014). Says presidential historian Doug Wead, “Anybody who gets to that level has gone thru a similar rite of passage.”

18       Born on a farm in Texas: For one of the best biographies of President Lyndon B. Johnson, see Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (St. Martin’s Griffin, 1991).

19       Five were never elected: In many of this chapter’s calculations, we place an emphasis on number of years in “elected office.” It’s important to note, however, that holding an elected office is not the only way for one to acquire political savvy. Indeed, many of our ladder-hacking presidents held political appointments (like judgeships or secretaryships) where they would have plenty of opportunity to infiltrate political circles. Even military generals like Eisenhower and Grant could be considered politicians, despite never holding elected office. As Doug Wead says, “Eisenhower had been running for President for years in the army. He succeeded in the army in exactly the way you’re describing these Presidents succeed in politics.” (Eisenhower climbed the military ladder sideways from lieutenant to captain to chief of staff, to commander of Allied forces in North Africa and Europe during World War II—hardly the typical upward move—to president of Columbia University for five years, to supreme allied commander in Europe.) Interestingly, it was actually Dwight’s brother Milton who people thought would become a politician. “Dwight was an afterthought,” Wead says. “And just a few years later, Dwight was the President.”

21       a young Canadian man: Kyle MacDonald parlayed his paperclip-to-house story into a 310-page book: Kyle MacDonald, One Red Paperclip: Or How an Ordinary Man Achieved His Dream with the Help of a Simple Office Supply (Crown Archetype, 2007).

22       “a cumulative series of bets”: “Define:Parlay,” Google, https://www.google.com/search?q=define:parlay&oq=define:parlay (accessed February 15, 2014).

22       “By itself, one small win”: Karl Weick, “Small Wins,” American Psychologist (1984): 40–49.

23       not just their rapid cycle time: For a bonus discussion on the effect of “cycle time” on small wins and the art of parlay, check out shanesnow.com/cycletime.

23       “It is their agility”: Katie Hiler, “Cheetahs’ Secret Weapon: A Tight Turning Radius,” New York Times, June 12, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/science/agility-not-speed-is-cheetahs-meal-ticket-study-says.html.

23       One of the fastest-selling: Apple’s iPhone changed the landscape for cellular phone technology with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. By 2012 its iPhone 5 had become the fastest-selling phone in history, at one point selling 23 units per second: Corey Gunther, “Apple Announces iPhone 5 as Fastest Selling Phone in History,” SlashGear, October 23, 2012, http://www.slashgear.com/apple-announces-iphone-5-as-fastest-selling-phone-in-history-23253373/.

23       Nintendo began its life: Nintendo’s history is nicely recapped by Tegan Jones, “The Surprisingly Long History of Nintendo,” Gizmodo, November 20, 2013, http://gizmodo.com/the-surprisingly-long-history-of-nintendo-1354286257 (accessed February 17, 2014).

23       novelist James Patterson: Patterson himself declared that he’s sold 275 million copies of his books: James Patterson, “Meet James Patterson,” jamespatterson.co.uk, http://www.jamespatterson.co.uk/about/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

24       Award-winning actress: Zoe Saldana was a ballet dancer, then got her first film role as a ballet dancer in Center Stage: “Zoe Saldana,” Biography, http://www.biography.com/people/zoe-saldana-20906287 (accessed February 15, 2014).

24       “Startups that pivot”: Max Marmer, Ertan Dogrultan, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, and Ron Berman, “Startup Genome Report,” Startup Compass, no. 1.1 (2011): 5.

26       If there was ever: Andrew Johnson’s story is captured in brief at “Andrew Johnson,” Biography, http://www.biography.com/people/andrew-johnson-9355722 (accessed February 15, 2014).

27       “worked in a groove”: James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850: 1864–1866 (Macmillan, 1904), 589.

27       “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere”: “Frank Sinatra—New York New York Lyrics,” Rock Genius, http://rock.rapgenius.com/Frank-sinatra-new-york-new-york-lyrics (accessed February 15, 2014).

28       Indeed, polls indicate that: “Is a strong and decisive leader” is twice as important to American voters in both parties (which 77 percent say is “absolutely essential”) than “Has a lot of experience in government” (which 34 percent say is “absolutely essential”): “Republicans and Democrats Seek Similar Qualities in 44th President,” Gallup, April 4, 2007, http://www.gallup.com/poll/27088/republicans-democrats-seek-similar-qualities-44th-president.aspx.

29       Why don’t we ask the ten: America’s best and worst presidents, ranked by 65 presidential historians based on “public persuasion,” “crisis leadership,” “economic management,” “moral authority,” “international relations,” “administrative skills,” “relations with Congress,” “vision/setting an agenda,” “pursued equal justice for all,” and “performance within the context of his times”: “Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership,” C-SPAN, 2009, http://legacy.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/presidential-leadership-survey.aspx (accessed February 15, 2014). While we’re at it, the New York Times reports that, according to aging expert S. Jay Olshansky, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, presidents tend to live longer than their peers. So their unconventional lives don’t seem to sacrifice health for success. Lawrence K. Altman, “Being President Is Tough but Usually Not Fatal, a Study Concludes,” New York Times, December 6, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/health/american-presidents-outlive-other-men-their-age-study-finds.html (accessed February 15, 2014).

30       and better at the job: A lack of political savvy wasn’t what allowed great presidents to rise so quickly; it was the fact that they didn’t play the same game that other politicians did. Abraham Lincoln had spent his adult life studying the law and politics. The point is that it didn’t matter that he hadn’t spent time in office; he proved his leadership capabilities regardless, and he had the inherent ability to think laterally, which made him an excellent president.

CHAPTER TWO: TRAINING WITH MASTERS

33       He stood on a small stage: Much of Jimmy Fallon’s story in this chapter comes from interviews with Randi Siegel, Jimmy’s first manager. If you would like to hear more of her firsthand story of Jimmy’s early career days, she gives an excellent and detailed account at “Randi Siegel,” BlogTalkRadio, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/besteveryou/2012/11/14/randi-siegel (last modified 2012). I spent a lot of time talking to people around Jimmy Fallon (producers, friends, former colleagues), and after making it through two layers of NBC publicists, got stuck on Jimmy’s personal publicist, who returned one message and then got busy as Jimmy transitioned from Late Night to The Tonight Show. After two dozen attempts to recontact her by phone, e-mail, and LinkedIn, and at least one attempt to smooth talk my way past security at 30 Rock, I gave up. IF YOU READ THIS, JIMMY, AND WANT TO HANG OUT, DM ME ON TWITTER @SHANESNOW!

33       the most Emmy-nominated television show: Saturday Night Live has, at the time of this writing, received 171 Emmy nominations: “Awards Search: Saturday Night Live,” Emmys, http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominations/award-search (accessed February 15, 2014).

33       the oldest stand-up comedy showcase: The title of world’s longest-running showcase comedy club is self-proclaimed by The Comic Strip: “About the Comic Strip Live Comedy Club,” http://www.comicstriplive.com/index.php/about-us/ (accessed February 15, 2014). This claim appears to be undisputed.

36       spent 15 years performing: Louis C.K.’s agonizing and amazing journey is documented by Jonah Weiner. “How Louis C.K. Became the Darkest, Funniest Comedian in America,” Rolling Stone, December 22, 2011, http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/how-louis-c-k-became-the-darkest-funniest-comedian-in-america-20111212. C.K. also tops the list at “The 50 Funniest People Now,” Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/lists/the-50-funniest-people-now-20130124/louis-c-k-19691231 (accessed February 15, 2014).

37       played a few songs on YouTube: Justin Bieber’s story so far is laid out in a simple timeline at “Celebrity Central: Justin Bieber,” People, http://www.people.com/people/justin_bieber/biography/.

38       Socrates mentored young Plato: It is generally known that Plato was Socrates’s student and that Aristotle was Plato’s. Much of what we know of Socrates actually comes from Plato’s writings, as none of Socrates’s actual writings appears to have survived. From Plato’s writings, we gather that Socrates was his dear friend and mentor, though a few scholars disagree on whether that’s the case due to the lack of a direct statement from Plato stating such. The mentorship chain from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to Alexander is outlined in Philip Freeman, Alexander the Great (Simon and Schuster, 2011), 25. And one of the best online sources for quick biographical information on each of these men is compiled by researchers James Fieser and Bradley Dowden, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (blog), http://www.iep.utm.edu/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

38       adventure stories often adhere to a template: The comprehensive text on the hero’s journey is Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton University Press, 1972).

38       Research from Brunel University: There has been much discussion about the role of practice versus talent since Dr. K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University showed how “deliberate practice” can produce experts in sports and cognitively complex fields like chess, in spite of (and as a necessary supplement to) natural talent. (Malcolm Gladwell popularized Ericsson’s findings as the “10,000 hour rule” in his excellent 2008 book, Outliers: The Story of Success.) Further research on chess players, in particular, has showed that in addition to deliberate practice, training with a great coach increases students’ competition performance: Guillermo Campitelli and Fernand Gobet, “The Role of Domain-Specific Practice, Handedness and Starting Age in Chess,” Developmental Psychology 41, no. 1 (2007): 159–72. Chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin writes about his personal experience on the road to chess championships with mentor Bruce Pandolfini in his memoir, The Art of Learning (Free Press, 2007).

39       Business research backs this up: Technology industry research by Startup Compass, a group advised by entrepreneurship scholar Steve Blank of Stanford University, shows that mentors have a significant effect on the success of startups: Max Marmer, Ertan Dogrultan, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, and Ron Berman, “Startup Genome Report Extra on Premature Scaling,” Startup Compass, no. 1.1 (2011): 8.

39       Even Steve Jobs: Football coach Bill Campbell, an eminent ladder switcher who ran Intuit and invested in technology companies for many years, has mentored some of Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs: Jennifer Reingold, “The Secret Coach,” Fortune, July 21, 2008, http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/21/technology/reingold_coach.fortune/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

39       equal amounts of research: Negative mentorship experiences have been documented by various research over the decades. Common reasons attributed to negative outcomes from mentorship include “values,” “work style,” “personality,” “neglect,” “credit taking,” “personal problems,” “inappropriate delegation,” and “self-absorption.” For a review of the research see Lillian T. Eby, Stacy E. McManus, Shana A. Simon, and Joyce E. A. Russell, “The Protege’s Perspective Regarding Negative Mentoring Experiences: The Development of a Taxonomy,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 57, no. 1 (2000): 1–21.

40       by family businesses: The 70 percent statistic about family businesses failing when passed to the second-generation comes via oft-cited research from McKinsey & Co. In a 2010 article, the Wall Street Journal’s John Warrillow suggests that the reasons second-generation owners often don’t succeed are because (1) they lack the “scratch and claw” drive necessary to manage a business (because they are handed success rather than learning discipline to keep it going) and (2) formal education is not adequate preparation for running a business. The assumption is that business-owner parents often leave the “mentoring” to schools. John Warrillow, “Leave the Business to the Kids? Maybe Not,” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704575304575296523166009344 (accessed February 15, 2014).

41       “I’d done a transplant”: Victor E. Sower, Jo Ann Duffy, and Gerald Kohers, “Ferrari’s Formula One Handovers and Handovers from Surgery to Intensive Care,” American Society for Quality (August 2008). The Great Ormond Street handover story is laid out in detail in the above case study and the following journal article: Ken R. Catchpole, Marc R. De Leval, Angus McEwan, Nick Pigott, Martin J. Elliott, Annette McQuillan, Carol Macdonald, and Allan J. Goldman, “Patient Handover from Surgery to Intensive Care: Using Formula 1 Pit-Stop and Aviation Models to Improve Safety and Quality,” Pediatric Anesthesia, 17 (2007): 470–78.

43       The answer comes from the research: Christina M. Underhill, “The Effectiveness of Mentoring Programs in Corporate Settings: A Meta-analytical Review of the Literature,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 68 (2006): 292–307, shows that informal mentoring has a greater effect than formal mentoring. A later study found that formal and informal mentorship results in various activities (work, youth, academic) were small, but generally positive: Lillian T. Eby, Tammy D. Allen, Sarah C. Evans, Thomas Ng, and David L. DuBois, “Does Mentoring Matter? A Multidisciplinary Meta-Analysis Comparing Mentored and Non-mentored Individuals,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 72, no. 2 (2008): 254–67.

44       “Searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent”: Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

46       journey-focused mentorship and not just a focus on practice: Further research shows that when protégés open up to their mentors—what my friend and NextJump.com founder Charlie Kim calls “vulnerability”—they tend to achieve more positive results: Connie R. Wanberg, Elizabeth T. Welsh, and John Kammeyer-Mueller, “Protege and Mentor Self-Disclosure: Levels and Outcomes within Formal Mentoring Dyads in a Corporate Context,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 70, no. 2 (2007): 398–412.

46       “We were kids without fathers”: Jay-Z, Decoded (Spiegel and Grau, 2010).

47       “Most everything I’ve done, I’ve copied”: Sam Walton and John Huey, Sam Walton: Made in America (Bantam, 1993).

47       “first-class noticer”: This phrase comes from Saul Bellow, The Actual: A Novella (Penguin Classics, 2009). Noticing tiny details makes the difference between faster and slower learners. “Because of their ability to see patterns of meaningful information, experts begin problem solving at ‘a higher place,’” according to National Research Council, How People Learn (National Academies Press, 2000), 33–48.

49       found himself once again on stage: You can view Jimmy Fallon’s second SNL audition at “Jimmy Fallon’s SNL Audition,” YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1aKiolG2CA (accessed February 15, 2014).

50       The world’s youngest Nobel Prize winner: Lawrence Bragg won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915 with his father, William, for birthing a new scientific field: X-ray crystallography. More of Lawrence’s story can be read at “The Parent Trap,” NobelPrize.org, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1915/perspectives.html (accessed February 15, 2014).

50       The billion-dollar micro-blogging service: This January 2013 Forbes cover story delivers a great history of David Karp’s journey: Jeff Bercovici, “Tumblr: David Karp’s $800 Million Art Project,” Forbes, January 2013.

51       “He was a beacon for me”: “Louis C.K. Honors George Carlin,” New York Public Library, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R37zkizucPU (accessed February 15, 2014).

CHAPTER THREE: RAPID FEEDBACK

53       The most popular post: Though the Upworthy blog and its content was overseen by Pariser, the seven blunders story was “posted” by his editorial director: Sara Critchfield, “The 7 Warnings from Gandhi in the Final Hours of His Life,” Upworthy, http://www.upworthy.com/the-7-warnings-from-gandhi-in-the-final-hours-of-his-life (accessed May 27, 2013). At the time I checked the Facebook statistics, the story had received 12 shares; however that count may increase as more people discover it.

53       the top story on the hugely popular blog: The BuzzFeed article about ’90s side characters is by Dave Stopera, “20 Supporting Characters from ’90s TV Shows Then and Now,” BuzzFeed, March 27, 2012, http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/20-supporting-actors-from-90s-tv-shows-then-and-n (accessed May 27, 2013). I actually did laugh at the Olmec reference.

54       a mellow, unshaven author: Eli Pariser is author of a fascinating book about one of the darker effects of the “personalized” Internet, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (Penguin Press, 2011).

54       including Facebook cofounder: Upworthy’s investor information can be found at CrunchBase, Upworthy, http://www.crunchbase.com/company/upworthy (accessed February 15, 2014).

55       the week after Upworthy launched: The baby meerkats and other disappointed animals can be found at Jack Shepherd, “33 Animals Who Are Extremely Disappointed in You,” BuzzFeed, April 10, 2012, http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/animals-who-are-extremely-disappointed-in-you (accessed May 27, 2013).

56       The little comedy theater: You can learn everything you want about Kelly Leonard, executive director of The Second City, and the school itself at The Second City, https://www.secondcity.com. NPR lists various stars to emerge from the school, and quotes the thing about “Harvard of ha-ha” from author Mike Thomas at David Schaper, “The Second City at 50: The Harvard of Ha Ha,” NPR, December 11, 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121355679 (accessed February 15, 2014). See also: Mike Thomas, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater (Villard, 2009).

59       “Fail often” is a guiding aphorism: “Fail fast, fail often” is a much-chanted mantra of Silicon Valley as of the mid-2000s, and is attributed variously to gurus like Seth Godin and Eric Ries. The earliest published attribution I could find is a 1997 quote attributed to IDEO founder David Kelley: Anna Muoio, “They Have a Better Idea . . . Do You?” Fast Company, August 31, 1997. http://www.fastcompany.com/29116/they-have-better-idea-do-you.

59       “Here you only get one chance”: Mure Dickie, “Stigma of Failure Holds Back Japan Start-Ups,” Financial Times, February 22, 2011. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/abb1facc-3eb0-11e0-834e-00144feabdc0.html (accessed February 15, 2014). The dishonor surrounding business failure in countries like Japan in years past is troubling, though the trend seems to be reversing with the advent of more high-tech startups adopting the Silicon Valley style. However, while being allowed to try again after failing is important, research from both Harvard and Startup Compass show that merely failing does not equal learning, nor does it mean much better chances for next time. According to Harvard research conducted in 2008 and published in 2010, entrepreneurs who took companies public are 30 percent more likely to do it again, while founders who’ve failed are 22 percent more likely to take a new company public, and brand-new entrepreneurs are 21 percent more likely to do so: Paul Gompers, Anna Kovner, Josh Lerner, and David Scharfstein, “Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship,” Journal of Financial Economics 96 (2010): 18–32. That’s a 50 percent greater chance of success for the already-successful entrepreneur, and negligible increase in likelihood for the failed entrepreneur over a newbie. The Startup Genome Report from chapter 1 demonstrates that these findings are also true among technology companies that succeed at a smaller scale than IPO: Max Marmer, Ertan Dogrultan, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, and Ron Berman, “Startup Genome Report,” Startup Compass, no 1.1 (2011): 1–67.

61       NBA star Michael Jordan: In a 1998 Nike advertisement, Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Nike Culture: The Sign of the Swoosh (Sage, 1998), 49.

61       one-third of hospital patient volume: The CABG study, risks of neurological complications, and Staats’s “paradox of failure” are presented in a well-documented paper: Bradley R. Staats, KC Diwas, and Francesca Gino, “Learning from My Success and from Others’ Failure: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery,” Management Science 59, no. 11 (2013): 2435–49.

68       a hundred years of these studies: Kluger and DeNisi examine the “contradictory and seldom straight-forward” outcomes of feedback intervention studies over the decades in Avraham N. Kluger and Angelo DeNisi, “The Effects of Feedback Interventions on Performance: A Historical Review, a Meta-Analysis, and a Preliminary Feedback Intervention Theory,” Psychological Bulletin 119, no. 2 (1996): 254–84, and find that more than one-third of feedback decreases performance. “The results suggest that FI [feedback intervention] effectiveness decreases as attention moves up the hierarchy closer to the self and away from the task,” they write.

68       vastly preferred negative feedback: As people gain expertise, they shift from desiring positive feedback to desiring negative, write Stacey R. Finkelstein and Ayelet Fishbach, “Tell Me What I Did Wrong: Experts Seek and Respond to Negative Feedback,” Journal of Consumer Research Inc., no. 39 (2011): 22–38. “Positive feedback increased novices’ commitment, and negative feedback increased experts’ sense that they were making insufficient progress,” they find. This dovetails with The Second City’s method for training its students: year one is about making students comfortable and confident; year two is about showing them what they’re doing wrong and getting them to take bigger leaps.

69       This gets at the principle of rapid: Research shows that the speed of the feedback loop is important: managers who get occasional feedback on their work tend to improve more slowly than those who get repeated feedback, according to Charles F. Seifert and Gary Yukl, “Effects of Repeated Multi-Source Feedback on the Influence Behavior and Effectiveness of Managers: A Field Experiment,” Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010): 856–66.

             A few salient quotes from this article are enlightening:

People react in different ways to negative feedback, and little change is likely to occur unless a person is willing to acknowledge deficiencies indicated by the feedback. (857)

Negative feedback is more likely to be accepted and applied by someone with strong self confidence and emotional maturity. (857)

Even when feedback recipients have good intentions about improving their behavior, little actual improvement is likely unless they remain focused on implementing their plans for using the feedback. (857)

            In an interesting counterweight to Weick’s “small wins,” Sim B. Sitkin, “Learning through Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses,” Research in Organizational Behavior 14 (1992): 231–66, proposes that designing for “small losses” can prevent systemic failure. Sitkin calls this strategy “intelligent failure,” and writes, “Failure should not be pursued for its own sake. It is a means to an end, not the end itself. If the goal is learning, then unanticipated failure is the unavoidable byproduct associated with the risks inherent in addressing challenging problems.” Additional study indicates that, in Sitkin’s words, “The faster the action-failure-action cycle, the more feedback that can be gathered and used for adjustments . . . learning is facilitated when information is quickly generated, evaluated, and adjusted to.”

71       Not long ago, on a sleepy: The Zach Sobiech video can be found at “My Last Days: Meet Zach Sobiech,” Soul Pancake, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NjKgV65fpo (accessed February 15, 2014).

72       the fastest-growing media company: Business Insider did the math and declared Upworthy the fastest-growing media company in history here: Alyson Shontell, “How to Create the Fastest Growing Media Company in the World,” Business Insider, November 5, 2012. http://www.businessinsider.com/upworthy-how-to-create-a-fast-growing-media-company-2012-11 (accessed February 15, 2014).

73       a few of the contenders: The data of the Zach Sobiech headlines is from a private case study called “Advanced Chess,” which the Upworthy team was kind enough to share with me.

CHAPTER FOUR: PLATFORMS

81       That’s what computer programming is like: Abstraction in computer science is certainly more complex in practice than one can convey in a few paragraphs like I have in this chapter. For detailed reading on the subject, I suggest Timothy R. Colburn, Philosophy and Computer Science (M. E. Sharpe, 1999), chapter 11. If you’re really hungry, the books in this list will keep you going for a while: “A Reading List for the Self-Taught Computer Scientist,” Reddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ch0wt/a_reading_list_for_the_selftaught_computer/ (accessed February 16, 2014).

85       He called it Ruby on Rails: For more information on Ruby on Rails, see http://rubyonrails.org/.

85       a couple of guys at a podcasting startup: For a thorough and dramatic history of Twitter, see Nick Bilton, Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal (Portfolio, 2013).

86       “standing on the shoulders of giants”: The common contemporary quotation comes from a line in one of Sir Isaac Newton’s letters to Robert Hooke: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants,” Newton, letter to Hooke, February 5, 1676, http://www.isaacnewton.org.uk/essays/Giants. The phrase appears to have originated with Bernard of Chartres in the 12th century: Robert K. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants (Free Press, 1965).

86       managed to be the best with less effort: Robert Compton directed Dr. Tony Wagner’s documentary in which the fascinating statistics about Finland’s education system are brought forth and explained: Robert Compton, The Finland Phenomenon (2011), IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2101464/. Wagner’s books are further helpful in understanding the environments in which innovative students can be trained: Tony Wagner, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World (Scribner, 2012), and The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can Do about It (Basic Books, 2008).

87       teachers in Finland spent about half: Jim Hull, “Time in School: How Does the U.S. Compare?,” Center for Public Education, December 2011, http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Organizing-a-school/Time-in-school-How-does-the-US-compare (accessed February 16, 2014).

87       “I think it’s a great mistake”: My interview with Freeman Dyson was one of the more fascinating I conducted for this book. Dyson spoke passionately about hands-on learning being a catalyst for skill and interest development, and about how traditional sit-and-think-about-it education was counterproductive for young people. “I learned much more in museums than I did in school,” he said. “But having people drilled, that just turns them off.” In our discussion of tools for calculation, he said that a danger of digital tools occurs when they make mathematics more complex, such as when a calculator counts to nine figures of accuracy. However, he believes computation aids, especially if they can be put into some sort of physical world context, are enormously helpful to understanding underlying concepts. The slide rule in particular, he said, was an excellent platform for that reason. “It’s a good way of getting the feeling of magnitude. You feel it in your hands,” he said. “It’s a shame, because it’s really easy to understand. It’s accurate enough for almost all purposes.”

89       or learning by making and manipulating objects: Seymour Papert and Idit Harel’s tome on constructionism is rare to find in print, but the first chapter is accessible online at Papert and Harel, Situating Constructionism (Ablex, 1991), http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html. Papert’s book on kids and computers is a must-read when exploring the topic of platform-enhanced learning: Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (Basic Books, 1993).

90       students who use calculators have better attitudes: Results from 54 research studies on calculators in precollege education showed that “students’ operational skills and problem-solving skills improved when calculators were an integral part of testing and instruction” and that “calculator use did not hinder the development of mathematical skills. Students using calculators had better attitudes toward mathematics than their noncalculator counterparts.” Aimee J. Ellington, “A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Calculators on Students’ Achievement and Attitude Levels in Precollege Mathematics Classes,” Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 34, no. 5 (2003): 433–63. The attitude factor is crucial to the development of young people who may eventually become innovators in STEM, which is why Hopscotch (https://www.gethopscotch.com/), Mindstorms (http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms.lego.com), and other building-based educational games are so important. In particular, I recommend mastering statistics in high school through games like Blackjack and Yahtzee, and the teaching of personal finance through money arbitrage and debt simulations like the classic DOS game Drugwars (although somebody really ought to invent a PG version of this for kids).

91       coauthored more than sixty books: Dave Moursund was quite helpful to me as I thought through this chapter and he helped to tether the calculator discussion to the priority of high-order thinking in mathematics. Browse a comprehensive archive of his articles online at Moursund, “Dr. Dave Moursund’s Writing about Computers in Education,” University of Oregon, November 11, 2007, http://pages.uoregon.edu/moursund/dave/ (accessed February 16, 2014).

91       “Mathematics is a way of thinking” and “Get the thinking right”: Keith Devlin, “In Math You Have to Remember, in Other Subjects You Can Think about It,” Mathematical Association of America, June 2010, http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/devlin_06_10.html (accessed February 16, 2014). This essay and Devlin’s book, The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip (Basic Books, 2001), are must-reads on what’s wrong with mathematics education today in light of the tools we have at our disposal and the way we think about other subjects. Studies show that humans have the innate ability to grasp math, but that focusing on calculation skills is much less productive than focusing on thinking and real-world challenges. Profoundly, such calculation skills come naturally through such methods. Devlin closes his essay by pointing out exactly the challenge that Finland managed to solve with its teachers: “Of course, teaching math in the progressive way requires teachers with more mathematical knowledge than does the traditional approach (where a teacher with a weaker background can simply follow the textbook—which incidentally is why American math textbooks are so thick). It is also much more demanding to teach that way, which makes it a job that deserves a far higher status and better pay-scale than are presently the case.” And one final barb at memorization from Tony Wagner: “We all had to learn the periodic table in high school. Well how many of us can recite the periodic table today? Or even tell you how many elements there are and if you came up with a number you’d be wrong because two more were added last month.”

92       problem solving is more valuable: Dudley Underwood, “Is Mathematics Necessary?,” National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1998, http://www.public.iastate.edu/~aleand/dudley.html (accessed February 16, 2014).

93       building a road out of mud: I should note that I believe that most teachers want nothing more than for their kids to succeed, regardless of their qualifications. Keith Devlin puts it well: “What you find are thousands of teachers doing the best they can, trying to balance the need for conceptual understanding with the need to practice basic skills, but unsure of what is the best way to proceed, particularly when it comes to motivating their students. In the meantime, absent any clear evidence as to how best proceed, the majority of teachers quite understandably default to more or less the same teaching methods that they themselves experienced. Overwhelmingly that is the traditional method, though the fact that no one has been able to make this approach work (for the majority of students) in three-thousand years does make some wonder if there is a better way.”

93       “The definition of insanity”: Though variously attributed to Albert Einstein and Mark Twain, this phrase seems to have first appeared in World Service Conference (Narcotics Anonymous, 1981), 11.

95       Finnish schools allowed students unrestricted use of calculators: Science and Engineering Indicators 2002 (National Science Board, 2002), chapter 1. Though Tony Wagner’s research and international test scores indicate that Finland’s education trump all in a 2009 journal article in the Teaching of Mathematics, Olli Martio demonstrates that many Finnish students (the bottom 80 percent) had poorer high-level mental math skills in 2003 than in 1981, and blames the use of calculators and the omission of geometry curricula. Martio makes the same mistake as many critics in taking for granted that mental algebraic skills are a necessary baseline for success in life, but does correctly indicate that much of the math curriculum in Finland and other countries exists in its present form because at some point “somebody has thought them useful,” and that periodic reevaluation is necessary. Though Martio’s conclusions from Finnish math test results beg basic questions, he points out that the top 20 percent of students indeed enter the work force well prepared for careers. Olli Martio, “Long Term Effects in Learning Mathematics in Finland—Curriculum Changes and Calculators,” Teaching of Mathematics 12, no. 2 (2009): 51–56. A proliferation of research shows that calculators positively affect students’ ability to do mathematics. This depends, as the other research in this chapter would lead us to expect, on how the thinking behind calculator use is taught. Edward W. Wolfe of Pearson Assessments writes that it is “clear from the most recent studies that [judicious] use of the calculator, use of the right type of calculator, and integration of the calculator into mathematics instruction are keys to maximizing the positive impact” on tests. His essay, and a host of reference studies, can be found at Wolfe, “What Impact Does Calculator Use Have on Test Results?” Pearson Education Test, Measurement & Research Services Bulletin, no. 14 (2010), http://images.pearsonassessments.com/images/tmrs/tmrs_rg/Bulletin_14.pdf?WT.mc_id=TMRS_What_Impact_Does_Calculator.

95       Finland created a higher educational platform: The definitive book on Finland’s education system is by Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? (Teachers College Press, 2011).

95       international rankings dropped a few slots: In 2013, when Finland’s international PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test rankings slipped in some categories, Pasi Sahlberg noted the following in the Wall Street Journal:

The unexpected position as a global educational leader and role model may have disturbed Finland’s previous commitment to continuous improvement and renewal. Some argue that complacency and focus on explaining the past to thousands of education tourists have shifted attention away from developing Finland’s own school system. Others contend that the high-profile of PISA have led other nations to alter their curricula. Such observers point to the usage of PISA questions to shape lessons and coaching students to take PISA-like tests. As a norm-referenced test, PISA is graded on a curve. What other nations have learned from Finland and put into practice has necessarily brought down Finland’s results.

      Sahlberg, “Are Finland’s Vaunted Schools Slipping?” Washington Post, December 3, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/03/are-finlands-vaunted-schools-slipping/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

      A final noteworthy fact that often goes unnoticed in the Finnish education discussion is that there are no private schools in Finland. Sahlberg writes, “The Finnish school system continues to be one of the most equitable among the OECD countries. This means that in Finland, students’ learning in school is less affected by their family backgrounds than in most other countries.”

95       coined the term “lateral thinking” in 1967: Edward de Bono expounds on this and other terminology on his official website: “Lateral Thinking,” http://edwdebono.com/lateral.htm (accessed February 16, 2014).

98       Is it any wonder: Big cities are epicenters for invention, according to patent filings as collected and reported by Jonathan Rothwell, José Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, and Mark Muro, “Patenting Prosperity: Invention and Economic Performance in the United States and Its Metropolitan Areas,” Brookings, 2013, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2013/02/patenting prosperity rothwell/patenting prosperity rothwell.pdf (accessed February 15, 2014). The authors write that “Sixty-three percent of U.S. patents are developed by people living in just 20 metro areas, which are home to 34 percent of the U.S. population.” Richard Florida writes about the benefits of city living for creative people in The Rise of the Creative Class—Revisited: 10th Anniversary Edition—Revised and Expanded, 2nd edition (Basic Books, 2012) and argues that creative people may actually boost the economics of cities, though many have debated whether this is causation or correlation. Jonah Lehrer writes about “urban friction” as a key reason for creativity and invention in big cities in Imagine: How Creativity Works (Houghton Mifflin, 2012). (Imagine was pulled from shelves due to factual issues in other chapters, but the “urban friction” section itself checked out, scandal free.)

CHAPTER FIVE: WAVES

102    Quick etymology lesson: A thorough definition of screamo can be found, of course, at “Screamo,” Urban Dictionary, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=screamo (accessed February 16, 2014).

106    A wave is made up of: An excellent (and visual) primer on ocean wave science comes from Richard Mitterer, “Ocean Waves,” University of Texas at Dallas, http://www.utdallas.edu/~mitterer/Oceanography/pdfs/OCEChapt09.pdf (accessed February 16, 2014).

108    clips from some basketball games for extra credit: The basketball and handbag intuition-versus-pattern-recognition studies come from Erik Dane, Kevin W. Rockmann, and Michael G. Pratt, “When Should I Trust My Gut? Linking Domain Expertise to Intuitive Decision-Making Effectiveness,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 119 (2012): 187–194. My interview with Dane yielded many more fascinating insights on the subject, which could not fit in the book. I’ve published much of that supplementary material at shanesnow.com/dane.

111    constantly tinkering with potential trends: Ryan Tate’s book on “20% time” outlines the research and stories about business experimentation à la 3M and Google better than any collection of research I could put here. I encourage you to check it out: Tate, The 20% Doctrine: How Tinkering, Goofing Off, and Breaking the Rules at Work Drive Success in Business (HarperBusiness, 2012). For an excellent academic discussion about experimentation for entrenched businesses, see Stefan Thomke, “Unlocking Innovation through Business Experimentation,” European Business Review, http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=8420 (accessed February 17, 2014).

112    enjoy an unfair advantage over their competitors: The seminal paper on first-mover advantage was Marvin B. Lieberman, and David B. Montgomery, “First-Mover Advantages,” Strategic Management Journal, no. 9 (1988): 41–58. Lieberman and Montgomery revisited and amended their claims ten years later in “First-Mover (Dis)Advantages: Retrospective and Link with the Resource-Based View,” Strategic Management Journal 19 (1998): 1111–25. I pick on Ken Lerer a little bit in this section and I confess that I think he understands the complexities of the subject better than he let on in that class full of beginners. And I must disclose that his venture capital fund once declined to make an investment in my company (which his business partner later said he regretted having done, live on Bloomberg TV), so there is a tiny chance that I relished the opportunity to deliver a friendly jab here.

115    47 percent of first movers failed: Peter N. Golder and Gerard J. Tellis, “Pioneer Advantage: Marketing Logic or Marketing Legend?” Journal of Marketing Research 30 (1993): 158–70. Other articles that proved crucial to this chapter’s discussion include Robert A. Baron, “Opportunity Recognition as Pattern Recognition: How Entrepreneurs ‘Connect the Dots’ to Identify,” Academy of Management Perspectives 20, no. 1 (2006): 104–119, http://old.ied.econ.msu.ru/cmt2/lib/c/186/File/fa4_1.pdf (accessed February 16, 2014), and Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein, “Conditions for Intuitive Expertise,” American Psychologist 64, no. 6 (September 2009): 515–26, as well as William P. Barnett, Mi Feng, and Xaioqu Luo, “Social Identity, Market Memory, and First-Mover Advantage,” Industrial and Corporate Change 22, no. 3 (2012): 585.

116    Fast followers, on the other hand: Reasons for the second-wave advantage were proposed by researchers from Texas A&M only a few years after Lieberman and Montgomery’s initial paper on first movers. “Major shifts in technology for which the first mover is ill-prepared because of its investment in old technology may favor the fast follower that is not burdened with such investments,” write Roger A. Kerin, P. Rajan Varadarajan, and Robert A. Peterson, “First-Mover Advantage: A Synthesis, Conceptual Framework, and Research Propositions,” Journal of Marketing 56, no. 4 (1992): 33–52. “Later entrants’ access to relatively newer cost-efficient technologies enables them to offset or neutralize the first mover’s experience-based cost advantages.”

116    Many of the biggest corporate successes: Steve Blank, writing in Business Insider, makes one of the best-formed arguments on second-wave advantage out there: “You’re Better Off Being a Fast Follower than an Originator,” Business Insider, October 5, 2010, http://www.businessinsider.com/youre-better-off-being-a-fast-follower-than-an-originator-2010-10 (accessed February 16, 2014).

117    The way to predict the best waves: Fernando F. Suarez and Gianvito Lanzolla, “The Role of Environmental Dynamics in Building a First Mover Advantage Theory,” Academy of Management Review 32, no. 2 (2007): 377–92

120    In the past three years, Skrillex: At the time of this writing, Sonny Moore had won Grammys for best dance recording (twice), best dance/electronica album (twice), and best remixed recording, non-classical (twice). Sonny was kind and generous with his time (as was his publicist Clayton Blaha). The kid explodes with feeling; at times, I felt like I was talking to Andy Warhol. Example quote: “It’s not fine art composition, ya know—it’s not something to f—ing pick apart; it’s something you feel immediately. And, like, that’s how my life’s just been; it’s so fast-paced, about feeling, it’s about making it happen, ya know, and the experiencing it as well. To constantly take things in and respond to that. I love to push it out and see what I feel, like I have something in me.” Sonny works hard at his music—I’ve seen him practicing furiously two minutes before he was supposed to be on stage, getting new material down in order to give his fans something special—and I’m convinced that he’s been able to catch his waves because he’s constantly experimenting. But he also has a knack for feeling when the water rises. He’s the kind of guy who could probably surf blindfolded.

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

             William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/julius_4_3.html. (Hat tip to Robert Baron.)

CHAPTER SIX: SUPERCONNECTORS

123    Playa Las Coloradas, on the southern: Descriptions of Cuba, its geography, and the manglar rojo came from Nicki Agate, The Rough Guide to the Caribbean: More than 50 Islands, Including the Bahamas (Rough Guides, 2002), http://books.google.com/books?id=gWoW8qZogSQC (accessed February 15, 2014), 203; “Square Miles in Cuba,” Wolfram Alpha, http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=square miles in cuba (accessed February 15, 2014); “Sierra Maestra,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/356293/Sierra-Maestra (accessed February 15, 2014); “Eastern Cuba Sights,” Fodor’s Travel, http://www.fodors.com/world/caribbean/cuba/eastern-cuba/review-473363.html (accessed February 15, 2014); and T. Ombrello, “Red Mangrove,” Union County College, http://faculty.ucc.edu/biology-ombrello/pow/red_mangrove.htm (accessed February 15, 2014).

124    Cuba was no stranger to revolution: The history of the Cuban revolution and Radio Rebelde was compiled from the following tornado of books and sources: Aviva Chomsky, A History of the Cuban Revolution (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010); Nancy Stout and Alice Walker, One Day in December: Celia Sanchez and the Cuban Revolution (Monthly Review Press, 2013); Thomas G. Paterson, Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1995); John Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (Grove Press, 1997), 299; René de La Pedraja, Wars of Latin America, 1948–1982: The Rise of the Guerrillas (McFarland, 2013), 53; Richard L. Harris, Che Guevara: A Biography (Greenwood, 2010), 68; Paul J. Dosal, Comandante Che: Guerrilla Soldier, Commander, and Strategist, 1956–1967 (Penn State University Press, 2004), 177; Paco Ignacio Taibo, Guevara, Also Known as Che (Macmillan, 1999), 73; “BBC History—Fidel Castro,” BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/fidel_castro (accessed February 15, 2014); Lisa Reynolds Wolfe, “Habaneros Turn on Batista,” Cold War Studies, http://www.coldwarstudies.com/2013/06/11/habaneros-turn-on-batista/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

125    “Condemn me. It does not matter”: Spencer C. Tucker, Encyclopedia of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A New Era of Modern Warfare (ABC-CLIO, 2013), 126.

129 “Aqui Radio Rebelde!”: Hugh Thomas, Cuba: La lucha por la libertad 1762–1970 (Grijalbo, 1973), 1261.

129    “made concrete to the whole nation”: This quotation comes from Ricardo Martinez Victores, La historia de Radio Rebelde (Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1978), as translated and contextualized by Cat Wiener, “Winning Hearts and Minds: The Importance of Radio in the Cuban Revolutionary War” (2010), http://www.scribd.com/doc/41464197/Radio-Rebelde (accessed February 17, 2014). Wiener’s essay contains references to a number of excellent additional sources on Radio Rebelde and pirate radio in revolutionary history.

129    “The fact that we were outnumbered”: T. J. English, Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution (William Morrow, 2008).

132    “I think each one was worse”: Steven Priggé, “How Famous Writers and Producers Got Their Breaks: J. J. Abrams,” New Show Studios, January 8, 2013, http://www.newshowstudios.com/blog/television/how-famous-writers-and-producers-got-their-breaks-j-j-abrams/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

132    When we look at Abrams’s subsequent: You can see Abrams’s full filmography at “J. J. Abrams,” IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009190/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

133    “Being a giver doesn’t require”: Adam Grant, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success (Viking Adult, 2013).

135    to start a company called Mint: An excellent recap of the business strategy, content strategy, and superconnecting that went on at Mint Software, Inc. can be found at Zach Bulygo, “How Mint Grew to 1.5 Million Users and Sold for $170 Million in Just 2 Years,” KISSmetrics, 2013, http://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-mint-grew/ (accessed February 17, 2014). Mint built up demand for its service for months through its blog content before it even launched the Mint app to the public. This strategy of manufacturing potential energy before launch is further explored in chapter 7.

137    “Radio Rebelde truly became”: Radio Rebelde exists today as a popular radio station in Cuba. This quote is preserved on the station’s website: “About Us—Radio Rebelde,” Radio Rebelde, http://www.radiorebelde.cu/english/about-us/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

137    “The radio should be ruled”: Ernesto Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (BN Publishing, 2013).

138    Cuba’s literacy rate is 99.8 percent: Reported by the CIA in The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2011), https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html.

138    less popular than cockroaches: The poll about what Americans like better than Congress was conducted via phone interviews of 830 voters during the 112th Congress. While the results are both hilarious and disheartening, the fact that Genghis Khan managed to beat Congress while Congress beat the Kardashians seems to indicate that some Americans do not know what these things are. Congress did rank higher than meth labs and lobbyists, however, which I think we can count as a win in the war against mind-altering substances: “Congress Less Popular than Cockroaches, Traffic Jams,” Public Policy Polling, January 8, 2013, http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_Natl_010813_.pdf (accessed February 15, 2014).

CHAPTER SEVEN: MOMENTUM

141    “the funniest video in the world”: Jimmy Kimmel tweeted Bear Vasquez’s “Double Rainbow” video with this description. Technically, he quoted his friend, Todd, and agreed that “he might very well be right.” Jimmy Kimmel, Twitter tweet, July 3, 2010, https://twitter.com/jimmykimmel/status/17665533038 (accessed February 17, 2014).

142    “What does it mean”: Paul Vasquez, “Yosemitebear Mountain Double Rainbow 1-8-10,” YouTube, January 8, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI (accessed February 17, 2014).

143    second-most-watched female YouTuber: Phan’s channel is “Michelle Phan,” YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/user/MichellePhan.

143    more than 150,000 paying subscribers: Lauren Sherman, “How Bloggers Are Scoring Million-Dollar Funding Rounds,” Advertising Age, May 29, 2013, http://adage.com/article/digital/bloggers-capture-venture-capitalist-interest/241687/ (accessed February 17, 2014). The rest of the material for Phan’s story comes directly from Phan herself.

143    “Your entire philosophy of money”: Robert Frank, Richistan: A Journey through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich (Three Rivers Press, 2008).

144    “pajama rich”: the phrase “pajama rich” comes from Bill Simmons, “One Night at Jack’s Place,” ESPN, May 5, 2010, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100505 (accessed February 17, 2014).

144    “When money is available in near-limitless”: Manfred Kets de Vries as quoted by Helen Kirwan-Taylor, “Miserable? Bored? You Must Be Rich,” The Telegraph, November 13, 2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3634620/Miserable-Bored-You-must-be-rich.html (accessed February 17, 2014).

145    When businesspeople cash out big: Sudden-wealth therapists Susan Bradley, Stephen Goldbart, and Joan DiFuria were each quite helpful with the material for the “depressed billionaires” portion of this chapter, both on record and on background. Their books on the subject are: Stephen Goldbart and Joan Indursky DiFuria, Affluence Intelligence: Earn More, Worry Less, and Live a Happy and Balanced Life (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2011) and Susan Bradley, Sudden Money: Managing a Financial Windfall (Wiley, 2000). “In our society, money is over-valued as a source of meaning and a symbol of success. That money changes how you see yourself, how you interact with people and what you do with your day and your future in very significant ways,” says Goldbart.

145    If you want to get really depressed: An excellent CNN story recapping the various journeys of former moonwalkers: Chris Chandler and Andy Rose, “After Walking on Moon, Astronauts Trod Various Paths,” CNN, July 17, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/17/life.after.moon.landing/index.html (accessed February 17, 2014). Original reporting of Armstrong’s lawsuits can be seen at Bill Romano, “Neil Armstrong Sues over Use of Name in Ad,” Boca Raton News, February 6, 1997, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1291&dat=19970206&id=1ClUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TY4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4495,1731221 (accessed February 17, 2014). James Irwin’s ministry info can be found in his obituary at “James Irwin Was Astronaut, Minister, City Native,” Associated Press, August 10, 1991, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19910810&id=QNc0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=aW4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6642,3038054 (accessed February 17, 2014), and Buzz Aldrin’s memoir about life after the moon reveals a profound emptiness, often between the lines: Buzz Aldrin and Ken Abraham, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon (Three Rivers Press, 2010).

146    one-third of Americans are happy at their jobs: “Two-Thirds America Unhappy at Job: 65% Choose New Boss over Raise Says Study by TellYourBoss.com,” Business Wire, http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20121016005065/en/Two-Thirds-America-Unhappy-Job-65-Choose-Boss (accessed March 4, 2014).

146    a research study of white-collar employees: The research by Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer demonstrates the psychological power of progress over absolute achievements, adding to the evidence that money indeed does not buy happiness: Amabile and Kramer, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011).

148    as addictive as cocaine: Valerie Strauss, “Rats Find Oreos as Addictive as Cocaine—An Unusual College Research Project,” Washington Post, October 18, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/18/rats-find-oreos-as-addictive-as-cocaine-an-unusual-college-research-project/ (accessed March 4, 2014).

148    @Oreo sent a status update: The famous Oreo tweet, which I both loved and despised, can be found at https://twitter.com/Oreo/status/298246571718483968.

149    Mashable posted an article: Amanda Wills, “Someone Give This Oreo Employee a Raise,” Mashable, February 3, 2013, http://mashable.com/2013/02/03/oreo-super-bowl-twitter/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

149    525 million earned media impressions: 360i’s documentation of ongoing award and momentum making can be seen at “Dunking in the Dark,” 360i, http://www.360i.com/work/oreo-super-bowl/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

150    “Wired magazine declared Oreo”: Ibid.

150    “chill day. off to nyc soon for SNL week!”: Biebs tweeted this the same day as Oreo, achieving 17,000 retweets to Oreo Cookie’s 15,000 (see https://twitter.com/justinbieber/status/298136225930420224).

151    cover a multitude of sins: Yes, this was a bit of cringe-worthy biblical allusion.

155    groundbreaking digital school called Khan Academy: Sal Khan’s story so far is told artfully by Clive Thompson, “How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education,” WIRED, August 2011 (accessed February 17, 2014). While you’re at it, please read Clive’s book Smarter Than You Think (Penguin Press, 2013) sometime.

155    a folk singer whose amazing: The story of Sixto Rodriguez is best experienced by watching Malik Bendjelloul, Searching for Sugar Man, DVD, IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125608/ (accessed February 17, 2014). It’s one of the coolest documentaries I’ve seen.

156    spent years building up potential energy: The Phan-Vasquez comparison shows how preparation affects the outcomes of lucky breaks of similar proportion. It should be noted, however, that the difference between outcomes was not simply because Phan’s videos were educational, and therefore somehow more likely to be successful than Vasquez’s humor. Indeed, comedy and entertainment have historically dominated YouTube charts over educational content. The number one female (non-popstar) YouTube channel (Phan ranks number two) at the time of this writing is that of comedian Jenna Marbles: Jenna Marbles Blog, http://jennamarblesblog.com/ (accessed February 17, 2014). Other massively successful YouTube stars, such as comedians the Gregory Brothers (“AutoTune the News,” YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/autotunethenews), during this time period caught similar viral “breaks” and managed to turn the momentum into comedy businesses. Bear Vasquez’s problem was that “Double Rainbow” was unintentionally funny. The category was not the defining factor in this case; it was the (lack of) preparedness to capitalize on momentum.

156    “Success is like a lightning bolt”: Stephanie Buck, “Michelle Phan: Behind the Makeup of YouTube’s Fairy Godmother,” Mashable, August 23, 2013, http://mashable.com/2013/08/23/michelle-phan/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

CHAPTER EIGHT: SIMPLICITY

157    20 million premature or low-weight: For some sad statistics about preterm births in third-world countries, see Kounteya Sinha, “India Shares Highest Preterm Birth Burden,” Times of India, June 8, 2012, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-08/india/32123625_1_preterm-premature-babies-joy-lawn (accessed February 17, 2014). Studies tend to disagree slightly on the exact number of premature births that occur around the world each year (most likely due to reporting issues and varying definitions of terms), but the most reliable data seems to come from the WHO: “Preterm Birth,” World Health Organization, November 2013, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs363/en/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

158    Every iteration of the incubator: More on the development of the field of neonatology can be referenced at Alistair G. S. Philip, “The Evolution of Neonatology,”Pediatric Research 58, no. 4 (2005), http://www.neonatology.org/pdf/EvolutionOfNeonatology.pdf (accessed February 17, 2014).

158    The typical incubator cost: The New York Times reports that neonatal incubators range from $1,000 to $40,000: Madeline Drexler, “Looking under the Hood and Seeing an Incubator,” New York Times, December 15, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/health/16incubators.html (accessed February 17, 2014). Jane Chen puts the typical price of a new, high-tech neonatal intensive care unit at around $20,000. I’ve found used incubators on eBay and from hospitals ($1,000–4,000), but in limited supply.

158    “We started making a cheaper glass box”: Shrabonti Bagchi, “Saving Little Lives,” Times of India, September 19, 2011, http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAxMS8wOS8xOSNBcjAwNDAw (accessed February 17, 2014).

159    “We realized something was wrong”: Ibid.

161    the Latin innovare: “Innovate,” Merriam-Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovate (accessed February 17, 2014). The classic book about disruptive innovation is, of course, Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma (HarperBusiness, 1997). I have drawn heavily from Christensen’s ideas in various parts of this book and in my business career.

162    Tech writer Brian Lam: David Carr’s 2012 profile of Blam will make you want to move to Hawaii, too: “Buffeted by the Web, but Now Riding It,” New York Times, December 16, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/business/media/buffeted-by-the-web-but-now-riding-it.html (accessed February 17, 2014).

162    Blam will simply tell you: Brian Lam’s TheWirecutter has since expanded to several writers (to spread the load and ensure enough surf time, naturally). I actually purchased the UE Mini Boom speakers at TheWirecutter’s suggestion and listened to them during the making of this book. They do indeed sound good. Alexander George, “The Best Portable Bluetooth Speaker,” TheWirecutter, November 4, 2013, http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-bluetooth-speaker/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

163    “Now that I do know it”: Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet (1887).

163    closet was filled with dozens: Anyone who saw Steve Jobs on stage knows the outfit: black turtleneck, blue jeans. Walter Isaacson explains the backstory in his biography: Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (Simon and Schuster, 2011).

163    “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits”: Michael Lewis, “Obama’s Way,” Vanity Fair, October 2012.

164    making lots of tiny choices depletes: Kathleen D. Vohs, Brandon J. Schmeichel, Noelle M. Nelson, Roy F. Baumeister, Jean M. Twenge, and Dianne M. Tice, “Making Choices Impairs Subsequent Self-Control: A Limited-Resource Account of Decision Making, Self-Regulation, and Active Initiative,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94, no. 5 (2008): 883–98.

164    doubled Apple’s mouse market share: Neil Hughes and Kasper Jade, “Magic Mouse Helps Apple Double Share of Market in 8 Weeks,” Apple Insider (blog), December 29, 2009, http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/29/magic_mouse_helps_apple_double_share_of_market_in_8_weeks.

164    “1,000 songs in your pocket”: “Apple Press Info,” Apple, http://www.apple.com/pr/products/ipodhistory/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

167    kids who are tenaciously: Focused kids win spelling bees over kids with higher IQs, according to Angela Lee Duckworth, Teri A. Kirby, Eli Tsukayama, Heather Berstein, and K. Anders Ericsson, “Deliberate Practice Spells Success: Why Grittier Competitors Triumph at the National Spelling Bee,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 2, no. 2 (2010): 174–81.

167    simplicity as “the ultimate sophistication”: This quote is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, though the attribution has never been validated by an original source. According to Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs was fond of the quote and it was an early Apple slogan.

CHAPTER NINE: 10X THINKING

169    On a pleasant Sunday evening: You can learn more about SpaceX and view footage of its launches at “SpaceX News,” SpaceX, http://www.spacex.com/news (accessed February 17, 2014). The SpaceX history in this chapter comes primarily through personal interviews with former SpaceX employees, NASA historians, and aerospace academics, and from video footage of Falcon launches. An independent fact checker verified the information in my reporting and I delivered material from this chapter to Elon Musk himself for firsthand verification. (Musk did not return anything.) Two major magazine profiles of Musk provide further biographical details: Chris Anderson, “The Shared Genius of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs,” Fortune, November 2013, and Tom Junod, “The Triumph of His Will,” Esquire, November 2012.

171    “I didn’t think there was anything I could do”: Chris Anderson, “Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars,” Wired, October 21, 2012, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/ (accessed February 15, 2014).

172    NASA employed about 18,000: NASA’s headcount comes from “Space Organizations Part 1: NASA—Nasa’s Workforce,” Library Index, http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/987/Space-Organizations-Part-1-NASA-NASA-S-WORKFORCE.html, and the catalog of collaborators on the Apollo project is documented by Catherine Thimmesh, Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006).

172    “To make life multiplanetary” and the continuation of “human consciousness”: Musk often repeats these phrases in interviews, such as David Pescovitz, “Elon Musk on Making Life Multi-Planetary,” Boing Boing, April 10, 2012, http://boingboing.net/2012/04/10/elon-musk-on-making-life-multi.html (accessed February 15, 2014), and Junod, “The Triumph of His Will.”

174    over-the-top demonstration to create buzz: For more on Lady Gaga, Baumgartner, Alexander the Great, and 10x Storytelling, visit shanesnow.com/10xstorytelling.

175    “We choose to go to the moon”: John F. Kennedy, “Moon Speech,” Rice Stadium, Houston, September 12, 1962, http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm (accessed February 15, 2014).

176    “The Internet taught me nearly everything”: Kosta Grammatis, Kosta.is, http://kosta.is/ (accessed December 20, 2013).

177    to provide free Internet: Kosta Grammatis’s “Buy This Satellite” campaign was featured in an article by Jim Fields, “Q&A: As Egypt Shuts Down the Internet, One Group Wants Online Access for All,” Time, January 31, 2011, http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2045428,00.html (accessed February 17, 2014). His satellite tablet project in Dadaab, Kenya, was just commencing as this book entered production.

177    “It’s often easier”: Astro Teller wrote this direct quote in an opinion piece for Wired at “Google X Head on Moonshots: 10X Is Easier Than 10 Percent,” Wired, February 11, 2013, http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/02/moonshots-matter-heres-how-to-make-them-happen/ (accessed February 17, 2014), and then quoted it nearly verbatim to me during a phone interview.

179    the N-Effect: The effect is documented in this fascinating study: Stephen M. Garcia and Avishalom Tor, “The N-Effect: More Competitors, Less Competition,” Psychological Science 20, no. 7 (2009): 871–77. On that subject, writes Ben Nemtin on Tim Ferriss’s blog, after achieving his goal of playing basketball with President Obama: “The level of competition is highest for realistic goals because most people don’t set high enough goals for themselves. But not only do you statistically have a better chance of achieving what may seem like an unrealistic goal, doing so fuels you.” Nemtin, “Playing B-Ball with Obama: 6 Steps to Crossing Anything Off Your Bucket List,” The Four Hour Work Week blog, April 4, 2012, http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/04/04/playing-b-ball-with-obama-6-steps-to-crossing-anything-off-your-bucket-list/ (accessed February 17, 2014).

180    Brands with lofty purposes: Jim Stengel documents his research on the outstanding success of value-driven companies in his book Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies (Crown Business, 2011).

EPILOGUE

187    and a rather large prison: In case you ever get sick of Disneyland, Joliet’s prison is now a vacation option: Steve Schmadeke, “Tourist Trap? Prison Park to Open,” Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2009, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-07-19/news/0907170500_1_joliet-correctional-center-inmates-tourist-attraction (accessed February 17, 2014).

187    known as the murder capital: It’s tough to find the exact quote “murder capital” in articles about Inglewood, though locals described it as such in the late 1980s. Los Angeles Times reports are clear that homicide and violent crime were rising at the time: Marc Lacey, “Police Report 50% Jump in Inglewood Murders,” Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1990, http://articles.latimes.com/1990-01-18/news/we-110_1_inglewood-police-department (accessed February 17, 2014). The song I listened to after preparing this citation: http://shanesnow.com/songZ.

198    how many sneakers he’s shipped: In 2014, I wrote a profile of D’Wayne Edwards for Wired. For further reading and details on his sneaker designs and sales, see shanesnow.com/pensole.