Mitochondria as an Essential Primitive

Sam tells the endosymbiosis story and why mitochondria became an irreplaceable cellular building block.

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Episode notes

The most important innovations are invisible. Yet they are reliable building blocks of creativity that fuel human imagination.

The same 26 letter alphabet lets Shakespeare write a play, a researcher publish science or you can text your mum.

A standardised screw thread lets you build a house, a car or a space station.

This is the story of primitives; the fundamental components that make everything else possible. We explore how Jeff Bezos coining the term "Thinking in Primitives" as he invented AWS to the building blocks of the universe and life in it.

Join our tour through the weird and wonderful ideas of history as we gather ideas for how to build the future of humanity, space technology and anything you can imagine.

You'll learn:

By breakthroughs depends on invisible primitives created by someone before you
Why the most valuable opportunities are the ones everyone uses but nobody sees
How to identify foundational building blocks in any industry before competitors do

ABOUT

How to Change the World is an independent podcast on a mission to document the entire history of innovation. One world-changing event at a time. In the process we are building out frameworks and mental models to think more coherently about global change.

Written, edited, recorded, and produced by Sam Webster Harris.

🤓 Website: ChangeTheWorldPod.com

🤗 Join the Patreon: Patreon.com/ChangeTheWorldPod

Help from:

👩‍🎨 Design - Francisca Correia (available to hire)

🧙‍♂️ Mentorship - Jeremy Enns (available to hire)

Resources

10 Greatest Mental Models of Jeff Bezos

Sam explains the best mental models of Jeff Bezos on his Growth Mindset Psychology podcast.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Intergalactic Planetary... Lasagna

01:40 A mental models episode about building blocks