Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned
| Full title | Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective |
|---|---|
| Author | Kenneth O. Stanley, Joel Lehman |
| Published | 2015 |
| Pages | 141 |
| Recommended | 3 times |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Two AI researchers generalise a finding from their own open-ended search experiments: past a certain ambition, setting the objective is what prevents you from reaching it, because the stepping stones to a great outcome do not look like that outcome. Their prescription is novelty search — collect interesting things and let the destination emerge. |
Where I heard about it
- My own saved links — an Amazon link I saved to my reading list, twice.
- I’m Very Biased to Agree… (tweet) — also referenced from this saved tweet.
- Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned… (tweet) — Patrick O’Shaughnessy again, October 20, 2026: he answered John Arnold’s “underappreciated how much the shale revolution unlocked the AI revolution” with nothing but this book’s cover. Tagged
#books-to-readby Kyle.
Connections
- Serendipity — the mechanism the book formalises.
- I’m Very Biased to Agree… (tweet) — where this book already appears in the corpus, via Patrick O’Shaughnessy.
- Technological Innovation — the portfolio idea this sits closest to.
- Underappreciated How Much the Shale… (tweet) — the example O’Shaughnessy attached it to: shale gas, developed for other reasons, became what let AI’s power build happen fast.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.