Martin spent the day yesterday flying down the heady waterslide that is the New Yorker Conference, where inventors, scientists, politicians, filmmakers, programmers, musicians, and others with an eye on the daunting/thrilling place that is the future talk with New Yorker editors and writers about their work. Now in its second year (it’s timed to go with the apparently now annual Innovators Issue), it’s a brainy mini-marathon, punctuated by sweeping visual effects (thanks in great part to Frank Gehry’s floaty IAC Building) and fancy snacks.
All of which I was sorry to miss this year, along with the strong and welcome sense that I had become smarter in a single day. Luckily for us, Martin got back from Austria just in time to attend, and is even now being walloped with more visionary ideas, but in the meantime, he’s collected some of the most memorable lines from the first set of conference conversations. Kottke has been blogging the conference as well (and made the magazine’s new Twitter feed), and we can look forward to hearing more from Martin soon. Will some of the talks be available later on video? As a low-tech guru once said, signs point to yes. —EG
“Malcolm Gladwell has a new book coming out next year. It has already sold two and a half trillion copies.” —David Remnick
“Imagine this enormous room filled with incredibly sweaty teenagers with teeth missing.” —Malcolm Gladwell
“Scouting combines are, for lack of a better word, a disaster.” —Malcolm Gladwell
“I don’t think anyone could look at the President of the United States and not conclude that we have a massive mismatch problem.” —Malcolm Gladwell
“Ninety-nine percent of what policemen do is relational—resolving disputes and so on. So why are all cops big beefy guys?” —Malcolm Gladwell
“More politicians should screw up more often.” —Gavin Newsom
“I was trying to figure out why I am speaking third today. I think I was the top choice of all the sports combines.” —Andy Stern
“Change is inevitable; progress is optional.” —Andy Stern
“S.E.I.U. had to go from a lapdog of a political party to a watchdog for its members.” —Andy Stern
“Originally ‘Workers of the world unite’ was an ideological formulation; now it is a practical one.” —Andy Stern
“I am a very bad caffeine metabolizer.” —Michael Specter
“Rapidity in genetics is higher than Moore’s Law.” —Michael Specter
“For geeks like me, sexual data repositories are heaven.” —Michael Specter
“Drugs on average only work on 40 percent of the people who take them.” —Linda Avey
“Earwax is, you know, breathtaking.” —Anne Wojcicki
“We used to think, ‘We’ll figure out the gene for breast cancer, we’ll figure out the gene for Parkinson’s, we’ll figure out the gene for why I talk too much.'” —Michael Specter
“Anyone here seen those old James Bond films? Well, you’re looking at Q—actually, Q’s boss.” —Eric Haseltine
“Intellipedia is the single greatest advancement in the intelligence community since 9/11, and it cost zero dollars and took eighteen months.” —Eric Haseltine
“In the Cold War, the NSA came to mirror the Soviet Union.” —Eric Haseltine
“You cannot kill an idea with a bullet. You have to kill it with a better idea.” —Eric Haseltine
“Intelligence isn’t neat gadgets. Intelligence is computers and math.” —Eric Haseltine
“We developed a robotic hand but it developed arthritis.” —Yoky Matsuoka
“I have Duncan Sheik to thank that in my house, ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ now segues into a song called ‘Totally Fucked.'” —Susan Morrison
“Rock and roll in musicals—it’s like seeing your grandmother in a hula hoop.” —Duncan Sheik
“Of all the continents in the world, the one with the most hybridized conditions is Africa.” —David Adjaye
“These are like the three coolest chefs you will ever see in your life.” —Bill Buford
“Twenty-five years in Switzerland is maybe enough.” —Daniel Humm
“If you don’t go nuts in the kitchen at least once a day, it’s not worth it.” —Marc Taxiera
“I always think when a new season comes—this is my favorite season.” —Daniel Humm
“I think New York has more than four seasons. It has like twelve seasons.” —Daniel Humm
“Cooking is the only profession I know where you get to act like a buffoon all day with your friends.” —David Chang
“I can tell a California cook from a New York cook any day of the week—they’re slower…. I’m calling out all of California, pretty much.” —David Chang
“This is why I became a writer—my grandmother sucked in the kitchen.” —Bill Buford
“Ten years ago everyone wanted to have an omelet.” —Bill Buford
“The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. It’s probably the most important economic event in any of our lifetimes.” —Michael Novogratz
“Ramen noodles is everyone’s friend during two-dollar-a-day week.” —Amy Smith
“The truth is, there are ingenious people everywhere.” —Amy Smith
“I found out that most of these divas, whether Italian or American, were attached to needlework.” —Francesco Vezzoli
Note: Certain quotations altered very slightly to make comprehension more seamless. Not that short-term memory is flawless anyway.