Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World

by Melissa A. Schilling

From historical figures such as Marie Curie to contemporaries such as Steve Jobs, a handful of innovators have changed the world. What made them so spectacularly inventive? Melissa A. Schilling, one of the world's leading experts on innovation, looks at the lives of seven creative geniuses--Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nicola Tesla, Curie, and Jobs--to identify the traits and quirks that led them to become breakthrough innovators.
Though all innovators possess incredible intellect, intellect alone does not create a serial innovator. There are other very strong commonalities: for instance, nearly all exhibit very high levels of social detachment. They all have extreme, almost maniacal, faith in their ability to overcome obstacles. And they have a passionate idealism that pushes them to work with intensity even in the face of criticism or failure. These individual traits would be unlikely to work in isolation--being unconventional without having high levels of confidence and direction, for example, might result in rebellious behavior that does not lead to meaningful innovation.
Schilling reveals the science behind the convergence of traits that increases the likelihood of success, and shows us how to nurture and facilitate breakthrough innovation in our own lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Biography, Psychology, History, Audiobook, Science

336 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2018

Reviews

[Charlie Miksicek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heard about this book on CSPAN's Book TV and immediately wanted to read it. Illustrates the fascinating parallels among serial innovators like Ben Franklin, Einstein, Nikolai Tesla, Edison, Marie Curie, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. Very well written although parts seem a bit redundant leaving you with the thought, "Didn't I just read this chapter." The author also has the habit, which becomes a bit annoying, of using only female personal pronouns throughout (she, her) even though only one of the innovators is female (as opposed to the current convention of alternating male and female pronouns). It just throws you a bit if she is talking about Ben Franklin in one sentence and in the next sentence she in generalizing about innovators traits and says something like "she would do this". I realize this is just a twist on the older way of using exclusively male pronouns, but it bothers you after awhile. Maybe that is the point.
I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. It became a task I felt I had to finish rather than one in which I eagerly looked forward to the next section. An important study however on brilliant people who changed the world.

[Maram · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very well-researched and well-strutured. But the parts of every beginning of a chapter where it talks about a specific innovator life and work was unengaging and dragged.

I loved the parts where she discussed the traits by giving examples from all innovators. The parts where she said what she observed were well-done and highly engaging.

I had a small issue with writing she would use she or her instead of they or them, that irritated me for some stupid reason.

[VW · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 STARS

If you've read biographies of the individuals she profiles, you won't learn much new about them here. However, the framework of the discussion--examining the sense of separateness, self-efficacy, creativity, high idealism, drive, opportunities, and resources--is useful and and thought-provoking for those who possess one or more of these characteristics. I appreciated her acknowledgement of the differing roles of nature, nurture, and luck. Many works tend to over-emphasize one of the first two in the name of getting more readers. She also makes a point of recognizing the impact that such extraordinary lives had on others, for better and for worse. There are some bits of repetitiveness, but it's an easily-digestible read overall.

[Lecy Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chock full of research about some of the world's greatest creative geniuses like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Marie Curie, this book is like a mini-biography of the idiosyncrasies of these brilliant people, and what made them different from any other person. Although I found the stories shared to be quite interesting, it was quite redundant in places. *ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

[The · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every now and then I come across a book that seems to be written just for me. Mellissa Schilling’s book Quirky was one of those books. I first came across her when listening to Book TV. As she described her interest in what she calls quirky people it became clear that she has opened up a new and very productive vein of riches in studying these people down through recent history. I especially valued her insights about the common traits that identify such ‘quirky’ persons.
They challenge norms and paradigms and need time alone. Building self-efficacy seems inherent from early on and they often are inspired by grand ambitions. They excel in finding the ‘flow’ and are supported by having access to technological and intellectual resources often from unusual places and people. From experience I can affirm that living with quirky people can be very demanding. It isn’t for the faint of heart. But we are all the beneficiaries of such gifted ones. You can listen to the interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP4KZ...

[Sofia The Great · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it and it gave a lot of information that I didn't know.

[Anoop Dixith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book hoping it would offer insights about the quirks and oddities of people who are on the front line of inventing, exploring, building a business etc, essentially any form of innovation. Although the book was indeed about that, it was limited to THE USUAL suspects of genius and innovation - Einstein, Edison, Tesla, Benjamin Franklin, Musk, Marie Curie, and of course the unmissable Jobs. Not saying that was disappointing, but it sure was less any more informative than what I already about those icons of radical change.

Yet, I liked the categorization in the book, where the author Melissa Schilling tries to infer qualities of these geniuses that made them them. It's almost like that Machine Learning classification problem, where there's always an outlier, and there are just too many dimensions. For e.g, one line of inference was that all the aforementioned people heavily invested on their ability to sleep less - Tesla averaged two hours a night, Musk constantly 6 hours, Edison was erratic an d barely slept when working, and so was Curie, yet Einstein clocked eight and half hours of sleep on average. Same goes to family ties - Tesla was a celibate, Einstein and Curie had affairs outside of their marriages, Jobs was a complicated family man, Kamen never married - and yet, Franklin and Edison had a decent family by any modern standards! This trend goes on all through the book - everyone but one or two fits a straight line hypothesis. 

Despite the book being about very well known giants, I still did get to know a lot of intriguing facts and observations about them, thanks to the author's elaborate bunch of reference books, so extra points for that research and reading! Some tidbits include - after ten thousands of failed attempts at finding out a longer lasting substance for filament, the one that finally worked for Edison was bamboo shred; Elon Musk's grandfather was a Canadian "Technocracy" proponent, who advocated for an extremely interesting concept of dividing the population by seven, making each group work with a start day and a different end day thereby completely eliminating the concept of weekend and still offering a great off-time for workers; Jobs and Woz, during their Blue Box prank days, had called up Vatican at 5:30 in the morning waking up a Bishop; track-coach Bill Bowerman discovered Nike's legendary Waffle Shoes after a real serendipitous waffle; Ben Franklin was the one that invented bifocal lens because he was having different eye-range problems when reading and when...not reading; amongst others. But for me personally, the book put rest one of my long time wanna-dos. I had this theory that by using the temperature of the earth at the core and at the surface, we could find the cooling factor, and thus find the age of the earth. Turns out this was already done by Lord Kelvin in an open, public debate about the age of the earth between himself and Marie Curie. While Kelvin's theory using thermal coefficients gave earth an age of around 20 million years, Marie Curie's, from radioactivity, was FAR more accurate. Oh Lord, how could you miss radioactivity?!? (PUn intended (double pun intended)). 

The book also has some enthralling stories about Pierre Curie, Grace Hopper, and Dean Kamel, although it keeps you waiting for more of the him and that page never comes.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book, but it fell short of my expectations.

[Himanshu Upreti · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

What makes Elon Musk who has only undergraduate degrees in physics and economics to be able to personally design a prototype for a reusable rocket that is revolutionizing the space travel industry, build an electric car company that is paving the way for the growth of the EV Industry globally and imagine an ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interface company that aims to connect humans and computers? What are the factors that differentiate the geniuses and breakthrough innovators from the masses? This is precisely what this book tries to answer.

Melissa Schilling, an American strategy professor and one of the world's leading experts on innovation, tries to connect the dots between the lives of eight geniuses - Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs - and seeks to understand the traits and experiences that drove them to make not just one spectacular breakthrough but several, one after the other.

Social detachment, Self-efficacy, Openness to Experience, Intense idealism, Being at the right place at the right time, Access to Resources are some of the factors that the author explores in detail by analyzing the lives of the aforementioned visionaries. Every chapter begins with a glimpse into the life of one of these geniuses and then follows it up with examples of the similar characteristics shared among the others. In the process, the author also shares the science behind some of those traits and provides intriguing facts into their lives by leveraging the biographies, interviews, videos, etc. However, the author cautions the reader as well that "the life of the serial breakthrough innovator is not for everyone. Many of the factors that helped them change the world in meaningful ways are inimitable, and many of us would not choose the kind of life they led even if we could."

The last chapter was one of my favorites since it provides a framework for nurturing the creative potential that lies within yourself to help in the way you run companies, manage people, or even how you raise your children by taking the best of the learnings out of the different traits. I'd highly recommend this book if you are looking for a quick way on how to awaken the creative genius in yourself and at the same time, looking to stay rent-free for a while in the minds of these geniuses.

[Mariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book, exploring common traits of serial breakthrough innovators such as Curie, Einstein, Tesla and Musk. The book explores the convergence of personal and external factors that lead to their great discoveries and achievements and the effort it took to persist in the face of adversity. It also gives us hints on how to foster weird or unconventional thinking and personalities in order to unlock an individual's full capacities. The well summarized mini biographies of all the innovators mentioned in the book are a great bonus and very well incorporated in the overall message of the book. Strongly recommend!

[Tamara Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Quirky” is an intriguing book that explores the lives of eight innovators and the traits which lead them to making revolutionary discoveries that have changed the world.

By delving into the lives of Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Dean Kamen, Elon Musk, and Nikola Tesla, the reader discovers that many of these innovations came at the get cost of romantic relationships, severed family ties, sleepless nights and periods of working to exhaustion.

This book was engaging, educational and insightful. I was more impressed by how many of the innovators were self taught and has a high level of confidence in their work. In addition, the creations made by the innovators mentioned in the book were often not made for financial gain but rather for the betterment of society as a whole. Through reading this book, this can inspire the reader to begin their own path of self education and possibly create something new.

[Meg Berg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book turned out to be quite different than the one I thought I would be reading. I was expecting an exploration of neurodiversity, but this turned out to be an exploration of traits shared by 5 famous innovators. There were some interesting bits. I realized that there were quite a number of biological details about each of the subjects that I'd never learned, or had forgotten. It was enlightening to see the ways in which some personality traits that others might see as "less desirable" played to their advantage. I had a bit of trouble finishing this book, however, for two reasons. This is one of those books in which the author feels the need to convince the reader that she has written a revolutionary text. It doesn't feel revolutionary and her repeated attempts to convince me otherwise became tiresome. The book is also extremely repetitive. In an effort to make each chapter stand alone, a reader who starts at the beginning and commits to reading the book in its entirety has to wade through endless recaps. How many times should I have to read the same vignette about Marie Curie in one book? It is worth reading for someone who is looking to bring more innovation to a company or workplace, but may be hit or miss for the rest of us.

[Stanley B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author makes an attempt to explain the successes of Einstein, Franklin, Musk, Kamen, Tesla, Curie, Edison, and Jobs. She tries to find a common link that they all have to make them inventive.

As an example, they all have some type of “social detachment” that makes them think differently. They have a “sense of separateness”, “extreme confidence”, “driven to work”, and others. She believes “it is the convergence of such traits that increases the likelihood of breakthrough innovation.” A brief biography of each person is given throughout the book.

In the end, I did not believe her premise that studying these people will reveal how other people can “. . . nurture the innovation potential that lies within us all.”

While this is well written book, it is full of repetition. Some of the author’s revelations are not necessarily based on the facts and data she just explained.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I found this book to have an interesting concept. On the surface, placing each of these innovators into the same strata would be a bit of a stretch, but the author does this grouping masterfully. There is enough information on each individual to gain a true sense of who they are without becoming a full-length biography on each. The reader easily flows from Musk to Jobs to Curie without being lost or bogged down with superfluous prose.

[Jen Juenke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great and fascinating read on what sets serial innovators apart. The book looks at Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Edison, Curie, and Tesla about what set them apart to create great and wonderful things. The book was wonderfully laid out and was an easy read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot of useful information!

[Marks54 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Melissa Schilling has written a collective biography (multiple case study?) of a group of serial “breakthrough” innovators who have changed the world. The subjects include: Thomas Edison, Elon Musk, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Dean Kamen, Steve Jobs, and Nikola Tesla. The intent is to focus on innovators with large numbers of successes, not just on innovators with only a few successes. The life details of these people are examined in detail, so that similarities and differences among them can be identified and discussed. The intuition is that by learning about shared traits among this sample of highly innovative individuals, lessons can be drawn about how to foster innovation among others and build the knowledge stock of society. After going through these cases, the lessons are summarized and presented. The first is that it is necessary to challenge norms and paradigms if one is to innovate. Innovators also need time alone to develop their creativity and not be stymied by the process losses associated with group innovation approaches. A surprise for me from this book is how innovation can be so readily tied to specific individuals. All that stuff about innovation being a team sport? That is so twentieth century! Innovators also need to build a strong sense of self-efficacy. Innovators need to recognize and have confidence in their talents so that their genius can triumph over the others who fail to recognize their value. Again, this is also very surprising. I never would have thought that serial innovators need to be confident in their abilities and skills. Innovators are also generally driven by idealism and are pursuing grand goals and not just individual self-aggrandizement. Innovators also need to have intrinsic motivation and get strong satisfactions from their work - what Csikzentmihalyi calls “flow”. Oh yes, serial innovators also need to have sufficient access to the right technological and intellectual resources — they need to be in the right place at the right time if they are to succeed. Seriously??!

I was disappointed by this book. There are some snippets of insight and the central characters are all fascinating. While reading the book I had trouble maintaining that fascination. My problem is that I do not understand what the author wanted to accomplish from writing this book about these individuals this way. I just don’t get it. I am familiar with all of these individuals. I have read a number of the biographies about them - the most recent ones I suspect, since all of these lives are thoroughly documented.

What are my issues?

1) Sampling on the dependent variable. The book wants to examine the traits and characteristics of breakthrough individuals and so picks a number of famous individuals who are extreme in their success and productivity. To make this club, one needs to have lots of innovations. OK - when you pick such a set of outstanding individuals, it is very likely that their traits will be unusual, since highly unusual individuals have been selected. What is quirky about any of these individuals? What results are unexpected or unusual? That these people are very smart? That these people are confident? That these people are persistent and even stubborn? That these people are dedicated to their work? How can you apply the lessons learned here to others when the selection criteria require large numbers of external innovative successes to be included?

2) What is new here? Which of the results of this study has not been raised elsewhere and more effectively than it is raised in this book? These are some of the most written about people ever and the reader is presented with some thumbnail sketches and highlight replays of their greatest hits of achievements and quotes.

3) Why the great man (person) theory of innovation that is presumed here? Isn’t there just a little bit of the fundamental attribution error at work here? Yes, these are amazing people, but the book reads as if there are decks of innovator baseball cards available to support the book’s arguments. The situational context argument, when it shows up in the last couple of chapters, is fairly weak.

4) Why this sample? So we have new economy titans but there was not important innovation prior to the US Civil War (Franklin is the exception)? Leonardo is excluded but Isaacson did a recent bio of him (and one of Franklin). A few more passing references to Newton or Galileo perhaps? The sample appears to have a bit of convenience to it.

5). What is the point of bringing in motivation theories? Why simplify complex lives after all the trouble of mining the biographical details associated with each case? Did anyone seriously doubt that generic motivation theories could be made to fit their individuals? What would the argument against it even look like? Again, what is surprising here? So much seems obvious to anyone with some familiarity with these cases. How is the concluding chapter informative about anything?


Innovation and innovators are fascinating, as are serious business biographies of major innovators and managers. This fascination did not carry over to this book - and that is unfortunate.

[Vasudev Gowda · Rating 5 out of 5]

causations and correlations of personality traits that make them what they are about few amazing people. Good book

[Daiya Hashimoto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Melissa Schilling, Professor of NYU Stern School of Business, thoroughly review the five key factors below which were shared by the eight serial breakthrough innovators who changed the world, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs.

These are the five factors, five quirks of the geniuses.
1 A Sense of Separateness
2 Extreme Confidence
3 The Creative Mind
4 A Higher Purpose
5 Driven to Work

The author wrote that the serial innovators can think in different ways from the contemporaries because they are isolated from society. Actually, the innovators are almost super-creative social withdrawals.

An Einstein's friends said, "He had a shy attitude toward everybody. But I never heard even close friend call him by his first name. When someone did treat him with undue familiarity, he would shrink back."

The author introduces resent research which indicates the possibility that there is a biological difference between the normal and the genius. That is the constant amount of brain chemicals such as dopamine. In genius family lines, we often find many mental aberrations. If the amount of the chemicals is normal, man becomes an average person, if it is exquisite, man becomes genius. Really, there is a fine line between genius and madness.

In this book, eight great innovators' lives are storied from public aspect and private aspect. In public side, they all have brilliant achievements. They made monumental inventions, won Nobel Prize, became heroes of the times, run a country, made an era in the world history, However, most of them couldn't lead to normal happiness. They are definitely away from the general happiness like getting married, being surrounded by children and grandchildren, spending time with intimate friends, enjoying slow life because they were merely not interested in such happiness.

The author's said, "The life of the serial breakthrough innovator is not for everyone. Many of the factors that helped them change the world in meaningful ways are inimitable, and many of us would not choose the kind of life they led even if we could."

Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, and Steve Jobs, the modern IT entrepreneurs’ stories are good, but a bit familiar. I was interested in Marie Curie, who is the only person who won the Nobel Prize twice. From her early prodigiousness, social estrangement, serial great discoveries, revealed her adultery coincident with Nobel Prize, solitary research life, death of her husband, and to her own death from radiation effect, she looks an ultimate quark apart from the rest.

[Kian.ting · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book talks about a few famous creative people in history and also currently living, the similar thing between them is work ethics, but I don't agree that is have to be at the cost of wife and children, as in not being there for them. I think that is not good, I still don't have the answer if there is such thing as a healthy obsession, have to continue reading and searching. I think success is that you go the distance in life but at the same time leave a legacy as in our children, as in being there for them and teaching them and leading them along the way. It might just be my individual point of view success comes at the cost of alienating my children and wife then it is no success at all. In the world, I am a success but to my family, I am an absent husband and father.

One thing I learned from this book is that there are two types of creative people, one who is just introverted and awkward in front of people and the other is charismatic but also introverted. It is better to try and learn charisma so that one could rally people behind an idea to make a real difference, I have to learn this and also teach this to my children.

The book does give some notion on what that charisma is based on, it is an inherent belief in the individual and this belief is what made Steve Job and Elon Musk successfull. Also it talks about how the seeds of creativity could be planted at young age. I don't have the facilities nor the house to make a thinkering garage for my children to play around in, but I guess sending them to painting classes and music classes helps the creative process, we make do with what we have and dont give up.

[David Gaddis Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring and Thought Provoking

This book is a comparative case study of several of the most famous and impactful innovators in recent human history (e.g., Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs). Synthesizing original source material, academic research on creativity and innovation, and the many in-depth biographies that exist of these famous innovators in science and commerce, Schilling isolates the commonalities in personality and circumstance that lead someone to become a breakthrough innovator. The result is a deeply-engaging and entertaining journey across time and place that will leave you wondering whether Schilling truly has found the secret sauce to making a breakthrough innovator.

Importantly, the author does not oversell her thesis. Although she identifies several common threads in the lives of those she profiles, she also notes exceptions where they arise. The book is written in a style that invites readers to form their own conclusions about how and why some rare people create so much that is new and wonderful for humanity.

On a more personal level, you will likely see much of yourself and, if you are a parent, of your children in the stories of those profiled herein. Thus, reading the book is also a journey of self-discovery.

All told, this is a book for readers who like to think for themselves and discuss what they’ve read with others who share a passion for discovering how the world around us works.

[Carlos Gameiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it quite entertaining and easy to read. However I find it difficult to digest seeing the likes of Musk and Steve Jobs on the same list as Einstein or Marie Curie.

Along with all the traits and characteristics of both the person and the historical time when the innovation takes place, I find it clear that the most important aspect in generating these type of people is environment. Both at an early age and education, but also later on. Having educated parents that not only take the time to educate their kids and teach them subjects like physics, but most importantly teach the kids to have autonomy at an early age, and incentivize them to wonder about nature and reality, seems to have a huge impact.

I don't really enjoy the "started from the garage, now we're here" narrative that Americans tend to like to attach to some of their heroes like Bezos or Gates, Jobs or even Musk.
However brilliant all of these were and are, by no means they started from the bottom.

I also find it interesting that all of the innovators except one are men, and all are from western countries. Clearly showing either a bias in picking the people on the list, or showing also how eduction and culture can limit the potential of little girls and what they believe they can achieve, and showing also that, for better or worse, innovation tends to happen in capitalist mecca, the United States.

3.5*

[Bulent Atalay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melissa Schilling’s new book, Quirky, examines the lives of a finite number of individuals whose legacies have dramatically shaped the way we live and the way we see the world. Her subjects are eight innovators whose lifetimes span two-and-a-half centuries, from Benjamin Franklin the earliest to Elon Musk the latest. We have come to regard their inventions as necessities we could not possibly live without. As a physicist, I have long known the works of Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. I realized in reading Dr. Schilling’s book that experimentalist Curie and theorist Einstein share certain strange and quirky traits with each other and with other members of this rare ilk of “serial innovators” (a clever characterization introduced by Schilling). Indeed, genius we see demands certain heavy penalties, including an aversion to authority, being isolated by their very own genius, and subjected to mistrust and suspicion by others who cannot possibly understand them. The author’s lively narrative makes the book highly readable and informative while remaining authoritative. I would recommend Quirky enthusiastically to the intelligent general reader as well as to the scientist, engineer, and venture capitalist.

Bulent Atalay
www.bulentatalay.com

[Artemis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful!! I admit that I picked it up mostly due to Nikola Tesla (whom I will always have a soft spot for), but I think I got more than what I wanted. I learnt so much more about Marie Curie and Elon Musk (which I didn't think I needed but I was more than happy to have had).

Besides giving us biographies of the 8 great innovators shortlisted, she examines the confluence of factors that lead to these successful innovators (for instance, intelligence, self-efficacy, perseverance, creativity). She also examines the habits of these innovators (self-education is very, very significant here) and sheds light on how we might one day become one ourselves. :')

The author was also slightly repetitive, especially when highlighting biographies. I swear there were some sentences she used the exact same phrasing for.


P.S. One tiny, insignificant point on which I was confused about: when generalising, the author tended to use "her" and "she" rather than "him" or "he". Not that I'm complaining! I was just confused because I thought it was standard to use "he".

[Mercy [Bookworm | Engr] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ideas come from times when you were being alone.

Don't let the world corrupt your mind, stain your opinions, and erase your views.
You are your own, and you can change the world.
Be proud if you can't relate to others, be happy if you can't speak long enough with people.
Be in love with knowledge, be in love with your passion. Let it burn you, and may it burn the world.

I hate small talks. I find them as a waste of time. I hate efforts in conversation. If I don't like you, let's not talk.
I take books as my companion. I love playing video games instead of socializing or going out with different people. I am proud of having 1 friend as a close one and less than 10 as friends I get along with.
I am an engineering student and I am in love with problem-solving. Math gives sense to everything.
This book is what I needed to understand people who are I can relate to, who I want to be, and who I needed to be. They are my inspirations. I am so glad that I found a book like this.

[Trung Nguyen Dang · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice book that studies the commonality of some of the greatest innovators in history: Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Dean Kamen, Benjamin Franklin. A lot of the materials seem to come from standalone biographies.

So what make them great innovators, a summary:

- a sense of separateness, give your children alone time
- self-education but typically don't do well in school, except for Marie Curie.
- extreme confidence or self-efficacy, which can be developed after trials and successes, parents can help lower the cost of failures.
- a higher purpose
- driven to work: they are all workaholic to the extreme, and neglecting families
- opportunities/timing/being at the right time at the right place
- access to resources

Overall it's a great book but it's not a highly original book because it's based on many biographies, and not original research.

[Gregg R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Distinctive Similarities of Eight Quirky Innovators: I’ve previously read biographies of Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Elon Musk, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein, so I was fascinated to read about the distinctive similarities between each of their bios as well as those of Marie Curie, Dean Kamen, and Nikola Tesla. Further, I appreciated that the author didn’t just look back at history; she also gave clues for discovering and developing future inventors. Last night I was at dinner with some friends who expressed frustration that their 9 yr old is consistently annoyed by school and music lessons. Their son doesn’t understand why he takes lessons when he can just figure out how to play difficult pieces of music by himself. They perked up when I told them about this book and the eight quirky geniuses that exhibited similar traits as their son. This work goes beyond uncovering insightful connections, it also highlights the incredible potential of the quirky among us.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars because I really liked it.

So often we only hear the "glory" stories of our famous innovators. Ms Shilling certainly includes those, but she also describes the sacrifices, mental health issues, and demons that our extreme outliers can have.

She lets us marvel at the sheer brilliance of Einstein/Tesla/Musk/Curie, etc and their ability to hold thoughts, memory, and patterns and manipulate them. But then she shows their struggles with isolation, depression, domestic tension, etc, and that view into the human side was what made them seem like great people, not gods.

I really appreciated that part.

She also details how, to be an all-time innovator, one must have a certain amount of bull-headed rebelliousness. So when you have a fervent vision of a better future and believe you're right, that makes you a jerk? I believe that it does, but in a wider social context, it becomes more complicated than that.

Quirky is an easy page-turning pop-business book. I enjoyed it.

[Christie Bane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an inspiring and very readable book that summarized what we know about innovation by referring to the lives of eight people who are best-known for being innovative. I liked the book not only because it was well-written, but also because it made me believe that some of my own personality traits that annoy other people, match some of these very famous people's personality traits! The fact that I don't need a lot of sleep, don't really care what other people think, put work before relationships, and think that I know better than everyone else really makes me a genius-innovator-in-waiting, not kind of a jerk. So my field is guide dog training instead of electromagnetism or computers or radiation or engines, so what? Anyway, everyone should read this book if they have even the slightest curiosity about what it took to achieve the things that Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Steve Jobs, and others did.

[Aaris · Rating 3 out of 5]

In an age where we vastly require information at a much more rapid pace and at a digestible book has done brilliantly in providing a summarized format into the lives, careers and profiles of exceptional people and their endeavours. The one thing that will be said however is, if one is to require a deeper understand of what makes an exceptionally strong innovator so, you may as well read the biographies of the people mentioned in the book. It provides a summary of all the profiles and (auto)biographies of all these innovators without much else to ponder. However if you’re looking for an easily digestible insight into the lives and careers of the people that have been mentioned in this book and the means in which they’ve achieved their accomplishments this is the perfect book for you. Similarly if you’re wanting an in depth approach to all these serial innovators just read their (auto)biographies.

[Sid · Rating 3 out of 5]

As others have said, this book reads more like a biography than a self-help. I actually found that refreshing, to hear the stories of Einstein, Edison, Tesla, Curie, Franklin, Jobs and Musk. Serial innovators have unrelenting beliefs in whatever they stand for. This often comes at the cost of spending time with family, pursuing other varied interests etc. While hard to capture the recipe of a genius, the author concludes that family background and timing play a pivotal role (vs. access to capital). I think 4 stars would've been given by me had the author made a little more effort to tie back their traits to what average citizens can do to increase their creative quotient. Overall, the book is entertaining, and we can appreciate what these serial-inventors have done for human beings everywhere.

[Jaksone Wallbank · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very well researched book. The author is able to draw upon a vast range of research and stories about the group of what she calls "serial innovators". I was a little bit frustrated that she only focused on innovators in the science and tech industries. I did understand her reasoning for it, but I would still have been interested to see if any of the patterns she outlines are visible in people who are trying to or have innovated in the Creative Industries.

One of the other issues is that she has a tendency to repeat some of the information that she referenced in earlier parts of the book.

While I would say that this book is worth a read (or listen in my case), just be aware that it is a weird combination of storytelling backed up with some decent research which just gets a little repetitive over time.