From Mozart to Jobs, How Geography Gives Birth to Genius

Silicon Valley is an exceptional place full of smart, uniquely innovative people … right?

Wrong! So writes Eric Weiner in his new book “The Geography of Genius.” In the book, as Weiner explained to Kara Swisher on the latest episode of “Re/code Decode,” he traces the cultural and geographic forces that have made people smart and creative from ancient Athens to 19th century Calcutta to the present-day Valley … and why the golden ages of all of those places, save one, fell apart.

“They came into being for different reasons, but they ended for the same reason: Arrogance,” Weiner said. “The problem with arrogance is there’s no more room for ignorance. You know everything, and you’ve lost that openness to experience.”

Good thing no one in tech is ever arrogant.

Vjeran Pavic for Re/code

Weiner also discussed why different environments produce completely different types of geniuses.

“In 18th century Vienna, what did people care about? Music!” he said. “Who were the geniuses? Beethoven and Mozart. What do we care about? Technology! Who are our geniuses? Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.”

Listen to or download the episode in the player above, or click here to subscribe to “Re/code Decode” on iTunes; you can also find “Re/code Decode” on TuneIn, Stitcher and Clammr.

Peter Kafka will be in this space on Thursday to talk to Starry’s Chet Kanojia. Kara will be back on Monday to talk to SoFi CEO Mike Cagney.

If you like this show, don’t miss our newest podcast, “Too Embarrassed to Ask.” It’s a bigger and better version of Lauren Goode and Kara Swisher’s weekly Q&A segment from “Re/code Decode.” Click here to subscribe to the new show on iTunes right now. And you should also check out “Re/code Replay,” an archive of audio content from our events and interviews by Kara Swisher, Walt Mossberg, Peter Kafka, Ina Fried and more. To subscribe to that, click right here.

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If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara and Peter. You can also suggest guests for the show on Twitter, and we’ll do our best to nab them for a Red Chair interview.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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