#077 Alex Komoroske: Systems Thinking, Builders vs Gardeners, and Working In Large Organizations

Smart Friends

Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:52) - The Gardener of Systems

(00:07:43) - Builders vs. Gardeners

(00:11:09) - Who are the best farmers of miracles?

(00:16:52) - How did you become a “systems” person?

(00:23:45) - What does Systems Thinking look like for you?

(00:53:09) - Alex’s Slime Mold deck

(00:55:12) - The iterative, adjacent possible

(00:59:53) - Alex’s experience at Google

(01:03:12) - AI uses and potentials

(01:17:54) - Book recommendations

Links:

Alex’s website

Alex on X

Alex on LinkedIn

Emergence by Steven Johnson

The Systems Bible by John Gall

The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker

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Important quotes from Alex Komoroske:

"I think that to really wrestle with systems you have to let go and just dance with the system."

— Alex Komoroske

"I like the word gardening because it underlines that you are not in control of this system. You are influencing it."

— Alex Komoroske

"The builder gets immediately to work, but the gardener understands that other things can be alive."

— Alex Komoroske

"Technology should be about helping people create and use hand-tuned tools to extend their agency in collaborative ways."

— Alex Komoroske

"If people who are very unlike each other all find it interesting or intriguing, that's a good sign that it will spread out to be a very large audience."

— Alex Komoroske