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The story of the pyramids is one of my favorite illustrations of the nature of trial-and-error in innovation. See, the 1st pyramid was the not-very-pyramid-y Step Pyramid of Djoser. Heard of Imohotep? He designed this. It was the tallest building in the world for 40 years. 1/7 
This inspired Sneferu, who wanted a pyramid of his own, a real pyramid. He created the Pyramid of Meidum, which you haven't heard of because it immediately collapsed as it was built using sand & had the wrong angle & was generally unstable. It was the tallest thing for 5 years 2/
Snerferu tried again, with the Bent Pyramid. Halfway through building the Bent Pyramid, the Meidum Pyramid collapsed, and the builders realized that the 54 angle they were using was not going to work, so they changed it to 43 degrees. It was the tallest thing for 5 years 3/7
Finally, Snerferu built the Red Pyramid, using the 43 angle they had figured out from the Bent Pyramid. It didn't fall down! And it actually looks like a pyramid! Snerferu might be buried there, in a hidden chamber. It was the tallest building on earth for 40 years. 4/7
Snerferu had a son named Khufu, like the Great Pyramid of Khufu. The Great Pyramid used everything Snerferu learned. It was the tallest building on earth for 3,871 years! (Beaten by Lincoln Cathedral in 1311 which took over 200 years to build, while the Great Pyramid took 20) 5/7
So here's the thing: the volume of material mined and hauled and placed for all three pyramids of Snerferu? 3.6 million cubic meters. For Khufu's Great Pyramid? 2.5M cubic meters. Snerferu did more work, and failed repeatedly, but that experimentation led to his son's Wonder.6/7
When someone says "Rome wasn't built in a day" a better example is that you don't get a Great Pyramid without a bunch of trial-and-error pyramids first. To give credit, I can't remember where I 1st heard this story, but it might have been from Tumblr: ironychan.tumblr.com/post/137070533… 7/7
This is the tweet that finally put me over 5,000 followers! Now, as for tradition: I don't have a SoundCloud but I do teach in a bunch of free MOOCs if you want to learn about entrepreneurship or crowdfunding coursera.org/specialization…
