At the home of innovation

What would Albert Einstein say today if he could see how we talk about innovation, technology, and the future? He would probably be struck by the speed with which transformations follow one another, but also by how lightly we often describe them. In the age of artificial intelligence and global competition, innovation has become a ubiquitous word, too often reduced to a slogan, an automatic promise of growth, or a synonym for technological novelty.

A casa di Einstein (At Einstein's House), the book by Gianmario Verona, holder of the Invernizzi Chair of Innovation Management at Bocconi University, and Daniele Manca, deputy editor-in-chief of Italy’s leading newspaper Corriere della Sera, stems precisely from a rejection of this simplification. Through the figure of Einstein—scientist, public intellectual, citizen of the world—the book offers a deeper interpretation of innovation, understood as a long and cumulative process, rooted in science, institutions, and the social contexts that make it possible.

The imaginary dialogue that follows is loosely based on the book. It is neither a summary nor a literal transposition, but an exercise: a three-way conversation that connects the past and the present to question our times. At its core is a question that is anything but rhetorical: are we still capable of creating the conditions for innovation, or do we merely chase after its most visible effects?

Gianmario Verona. Today we talk about innovation as if it were a natural, almost automatic phenomenon. All it takes is new technology, a good idea, and change happens. But reality is more stubborn. Innovation does not happen on its own: it must be built, supported, and defended over time. 

Albert Einstein. It strikes me that you keep calling “innovation” what is often just acceleration. In my day, there was no shortage of new ideas. If anything, we lacked a context in which we could bring them to life. And without the right context, even the most powerful intuition remains sterile. 

Daniele Manca. That's a key point. Today, speed dominates public debate, but we rarely ask ourselves what we are sacrificing along the way. Without structural investment in science, without solid institutions, we risk consuming the future instead of building it.

The Solitary Genius Myth

Einstein. Do you know what keeps amusing me? The idea of the isolated genius. No one really works alone. I myself needed universities, laboratories, colleagues, even bureaucracy. Intellectual independence does not grow in a vacuum, but within structures that make it possible. 

Verona. Yet we continue to portray innovation as a sequence of individual heroes. It's a tempting, but misleading narrative. Innovations that truly transform economic systems are always the outcome of ecosystems: universities, businesses, public policies, patient capital. 

Manca. When these ecosystems weaken, the risk is clear. The technologies remain, but they lose their transformative capacity. Applications multiply, but progress does not.

Science and Power: an Inevitable Relationship

Manca. Then there is a topic that is making a strong comeback today: the relationship between science and power. For years, we pretended that science could be neutral, separate from politics. But that has never been the case. 

Einstein. Science is never neutral. It can choose to be complicit or critical. I learned early on that the silence of scientists is also a form of choice. And it is often the most dangerous one. 

Verona. Today, this is even more true. Major technological transformations are reshaping markets, work, and geopolitics. To think that innovation can be governed solely by the market is an illusion. Institutions matter. And collective decisions matter. 

Europe: Regulate or Build?

Manca. In Europe, we are very good at regulating what others have already built. We are much less good at creating the conditions for those constructions to be built here. It is a paradox that we pay dearly for. 

Verona. Regulation is necessary, but not sufficient. Without an industrial and scientific vision, regulation risks becoming an alibi. Innovation needs time, mistakes, and investments that do not yield immediate returns. 

Einstein. The problem is not making mistakes. The problem is not allowing yourself to try again. A society that punishes risk stops innovating long before it realizes it.

Asking the Right Questions

Verona. Perhaps the point is not to ask ourselves what the next star technology will be, but whether we are building contexts capable of supporting it in the long term. 

Manca. Exactly. Innovation is not a topic for motivational conferences. It is a collective responsibility. It concerns schools, universities, finance, and industrial policy. It concerns the choices we make today that will have an impact in ten or twenty years.

Einstein. In the end, it all boils down to this: change does not mean doing new things, but thinking differently about what we have always done. And that is the hardest part. 

Are innovators born or made? 

Verona. This is accompanied by a big lie: that innovators are simply talented people. Entrepreneurs are natural born, we think. Like great sports champions. Like great musicians. But in the complex world we live in, this is no longer the case. You need to study hard and be determined.

Einstein. True. In fact, I wasn't very good at school. Yes, I excelled at math, but I built my career step by step. And I worked patiently on my intuitions, studying and collaborating with great scientists and industrialists of my time. Self-sacrifice is perhaps what made me do what I became famous for.

Manca. Let's not forget that you were a talented pianist and an excellent violinist. You certainly had talent, but you also worked on many other aspects. On method, discipline, teamwork. On solutions in the curves of music, science, and human history. In short, perhaps innovators are born, but they certainly have to become innovators.

A Necessary Conclusion

Einstein. Allow me to close with a quote that is often attributed to me, even though I did not say it quite like that. But the meaning still holds: we cannot expect things to change if we continue to do the same things.

Verona. Today, that quote sounds less like an aphorism and more like a warning. Because change does not depend only on the technologies we develop, but on the conditions we are able to build around them. 

Manca. And this is where the question becomes inescapable. Not whether we will have new ideas or new discoveries—those will come anyway—but whether we are still capable of recognizing them, supporting them, and allowing them to mature. 

Einstein. Perhaps, then, the real question is not whether I would be born today. But whether, if I were born today, I would find the time, space, and freedom to become what I have been. A question that does not concern the past, but your present and future. And one that calls into question universities, institutions, businesses, and public policies. Because innovation is never just a matter of individual talent. It is, first and foremost, a collective choice.