Info + inspo sources for innovative thinking that you might not know Varun Gadh Follow Jan 6 · 3 min read

Last updated: January 23rd, 2020

The goal here is to have a steady supply of new and interesting problems, surging ideas, growing fields, and burgeoning technologies.

This matters because this is how you keep your mind open, limber, and challenged.

I’m not including books because many of the best don’t stay less-known for very long, and they’re not self-replenishing sources of info. I’m also trying to avoid really common sources of information. I’m trying to keep this short. It can not be, and will never be, complete.

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Podcasts

Exponential Wisdom — disruption-focused conversations, sorted by industry

Flash Forward — possible futures explored & discussed

HBR Ideacast — new research & ideas in business & management

Radiolab — deep dives & engrossing explorations of science, old & new

Solvable — in-depth interviews with leading experts solving huge problems

TED Radio Hour — a great way to be introduced to new ideas by experts

The Future of Everything — digestible takes on specifics of probable futures

Newsletters

AngelList Weekly — startups, unicorns, opportunities

Cassandra Daily — cultural trends, very pop-oriented

The Hustle — approachable and interesting business/startup content

Loup Ventures — a VC firm focused on research and an in-depth take

All of MIT Technology Review newsletters

New Atlas — daily articles about the bleeding edge of technology + science

Otherlab — cutting edge sustainability & robotics technology, research

Wevolver — developing technology, focused primarily on small projects

Medium Authors

MIT Media Lab

Tanner Christensen — no longer posting on medium, but I’m including

Jayed Mars

Erin Biba

Kevin Ashton

Sites

Random Things

Protobot

Sharpen

Creative Something

Kanopy — documentary and education content site free for students, and for many with library cards. Good for discovering new core science information.

Instagram Accounts

Curious Artifact

Freethink

Matthew Manos

MIT Museum

Nicole McLaughlin

Ray Dalio

sno commercial value

Unnecessary Inventions

Honorable mention: Me!

Sub-reddits

App Ideas

Bad UI Battles

Somebody Make This

Lightbulb

Crazy Ideas

In the real world!

Museums — especially smaller ones. Talk to the curators. Find the temporary exhibits.

Libraries (and librarians) — go wander around a library and take out a random book. This can also work with book stores.

Speculative Futures — there might be a chapter in your city

Conferences — find a free conference in a major city near you in a field you don’t understand. Spend a couple hours there asking questions, understanding the problems in the field, & gorging yourself on fun-sized snickers.

Informational Interviews/Curiosity Conversations/Strangers/Friends— between socializing and intentionally reaching out, I end up learning from 2–3 people per week about fields I don’t know or understand. It’s interesting and really inspiring, and as a side bonus it’s a good way to make friends because passionate people love talking about their work.

Strangers in general — talk to people, and more importantly listen to them. It’s really easy and really natural for us to default to living in a bubble and only talking to people like us. Find out what problems other people have.

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This is a list I mostly keep for myself, but hopefully it can help you too.

If you have anything to add, please feel free to reach out to me or comment.