The power of an algorithm

An algorithm is a finite set of well-defined, ordered instructions that let you carry out an activity through sequential, successive steps until you reach a result. As Seth Godin says: “Each instruction is simple and repeatable. It’s important to understand that the instructions work on all similar problems, not just one. Algorithms don’t care a bit if you believe in them or not. They either work or they don’t.”

For example, Darwin, through the theory of evolution, set out an algorithm, simple but powerful.

“The simple algorithm he [Darwin] described is often misunderstood but is robust and flexible and powerful, and it works for ideas and businesses as well as fruit flies and turtles”.

“Ideas that spread, win. Sometimes ideas get changed in transmission, and sometimes those changed ideas spread even farther and with more impact than the ideas that came before them.”

“In business, if you lock down ideas, make them difficult to change and spread and have impact, you fail. If you accept the fact that change is real, that there is competition for your ideas and that amplifying the good stuff works, you can grow and thrive.

[…] The clothing store Zara doesn’t have clothes for a particular season, they launch clothes for a particular fortnight. They watch and measure and adjust and then repeat.”

“Your organization (and your career) either embraces change and turmoil and sudden shifts in the rules or you fear it. In times of rapid change (that would be now), embracing the algorithm of the evolution of ideas and systems is a significant competitive advantage.”

You may not see life as radically as I do, since I believe everything can be understood through computer science (the old dream of a theory of everything), but you can’t deny the power of the image of the evolutionary algorithm as Seth Godin presents it.