Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Back to the future | 28 February 2019

issue 02 March 2019

The Romans never invented the stirrup. It took 50 years after the invention of canned food for someone to invent the can opener. And we put a man on the moon before we put wheels on suitcases.

This seems silly. But it is worth understanding each invention in context: often, a concatenation of other events has to occur before an invention can become widely adopted.

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