Abstract
Why are lone
inventors thought to be the sources of technological breakthroughs? The
perception – or myth - persists despite a variety of contrary arguments for the
benefits and pervasiveness of collaboration. By differentiating between
anti-social and independent inventors, I demonstrate that while the average rate
and success of creative effort is lower for non-collaborative inventors, the
successes are much more variable. If assessments of success depend on the
maximum of a distribution and not the rate or mean outcome, then a higher
variance distribution could be judged as more creative, a source of
breakthroughs, and a plausible basis for the “myth.” The theory and evidence
hold within and across inventors.