Three Big Ideas #14
Reflecting on mirrored life, breaking pilotitus, and cheering CEOs like star strikers
Welcome to our weekly Three Big Ideas roundup, in which we serve up a curated selection of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
🪞 Philip Salter, Founder
Those of a nervous disposition may want to look away now. Last week, a prominent article in Science warned of the potential creation of “mirrored” life – organisms composed of biomolecules with reversed chirality. These engineered microbes, theoretically invisible to our immune systems and natural predators, could spread unchecked, infect humans, devastate crops, and drive species to extinction.
Authored by a team that includes 16 members of national academies, two Nobel Laureates, and several pioneers who once aspired to create mirrored life, the article is supported by a 300-page technical report. For those lacking the time – or the requisite PhDs – turn instead to Asimov Press’s useful long read on the dangers. As it summarises: “A mirrored organism would use right-handed molecules everywhere a naturally-occurring organism uses left-handed ones, and vice versa. It could thus elude the typical chiral interactions by which microorganisms hunt their prey… Such mirrored invaders could theoretically spread across the Earth while evading the biological defenses that have evolved to check such threats.”
While the ability to create such life forms remains at least a decade away, the scientists urge proactive measures: prohibit their creation, regulate enabling technologies, and foster global, open dialogue. They point to existing precedents for responsible oversight, such as the Tianjin Biosecurity Guidelines, which guide the ethical and secure development of emerging biotechnologies.
While the science behind mirrored life is somewhat speculative – it’s far from idle speculation. Lessons from the nuclear era – during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Stanislav Petrov Incident, and the Able Archer 83 exercise – remind us how close human ingenuity can come to catastrophe when risks are poorly managed.
Nevertheless, we should be prepared to reappraise this position. The other lesson of nuclear technology is that overly stringent regulations have massively held back civil applications of nuclear power. As Jason Crawford speculates, the risk-benefit calculation may shift over time. Future technologies could radically improve biocontainment, perhaps through isolated, robot-operated labs far from Earth, or advanced nanotechnology might allow for tighter ecological control. But that is speculative – given what we know now it’s that rare case where prohibition really is the best policy.
👾 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher
Applications have opened for the next cohort of the No10 Innovation Fellowship, which aims to bring innovators and original thinkers into the government. The programme’s intent is commendable, and it really is quite exciting to see what previous Fellows were tasked with.
The challenge lies in continuity. Is the government equipped for the long-term delivery of a disruptive new initiative or innovative ways of working put into motion by a Fellow brought in for 6-12 months? The key to genuine transformation is scale. Yet, many innovative projects are trapped in “pilotitus” – failing to reach their full potential.
To counter this, people with a similar outside-the-box mentality are needed inside the government for the long term to carry forward the original vision during implementation. Without this, an innovative idea conceived with great ambition risks being watered down to something rather conventional. In his new book On Leadership, Tony Blair writes that improving delivery capacity requires people “working with the system but not formed by it,” and calls to “treat policymaking not as a spasmodic response to the difficulty of the day but as an opportunity to go deep and make change which lasts: a change not a splash.”
Having innovative thinkers embedded in government as a norm also increases the chance of something exceptional emerging from within. When Pat McFadden outlined the idea of experts from tech companies doing “Tours of Duty”, it might have been interpreted as if no innovator had set foot in Whitehall before. This is not the case. For example, such individuals were critical to the creation of the Vaccine Taskforce, ARIA and AI Safety Institute – all remarkable examples of startups inside the government.
But despite the clear, lasting value that innovators bring, the system hasn’t always been good at keeping them. It is worthwhile for the government to reflect on why such thinkers and doers leave, and what changes are required to empower the “weirdos and misfits” who are instrumental to meaningful transformation.
⚽ Eamonn Ives, Research Director
No fewer than 88 companies have delisted or moved their primary listing from the London Stock Exchange in 2024 – putting it on track for its worst year since 2009. This languid performance has left many asking what can be done to avert the rot.
One answer offered up recently by Lord Michael Spencer is that we need to be comfortable paying the bosses of listed companies “like top-rate footballers” without worrying about triggering a backlash. I’m minded to agree – FTSE 100 bosses are paid about a third of their S&P 500 equivalents on average, and while a large part of that will be down to the US market being far more dynamic overall, it’s not unreasonable to think that remuneration is restrained this side of the Atlantic for fear of negative press. In addition, the less enticing we make it for bosses to manage UK-listed firms, the less likely it is we’ll get the sort of talent required to achieve economic success.
Managers matter, and we have a wealth of evidence to back it up. In study after study, economists have demonstrated the power of good management. To take a famous one from Nicholas Bloom, John Van Reenen and Erik Brynjolfsson, they found that management performance can explain differences in productivity between firms even more than R&D, employee skills and investment in IT can.
Meanwhile, having a respected individual at the helm can boost a company’s value by many, many multiples more than what they take home each year. When Apple’s visionary leader Steve Jobs quit, shares dipped by 3%, erasing billions in value; in contrast, when Steve Ballmer announced the end of his less-than-spectacular tenure as Microsoft CEO, shares in the tech giant jumped by 7.5%.
Of course, becoming intensely relaxed with people getting filthy rich – to re-coin a phrase – is only one part of the puzzle. Other policies, like ending Stamp Duty on shares, would likely be quicker routes to bolstering the attractiveness of the LSE. But for long-term success, maybe we really do need to look a little deeper – and begin to cheer our corporate bosses as we do our footballing idols.