Downsides of Collaboration

Here’s an outstanding video on how collaboration can not only kill creativity, but dupe our very perceptions. Steve Wozniak:

Most inventors and engineers I have met are like me: they’re shy and they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone where they can control an invention’s design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don’t believe anything revolutionary has ever been invented by committee. If you’re that rare engineer who is an inventor and also an artist, I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: work alone. You’re going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you’re working on your own. Not on a committee. Not on a team.

And it gets better from here.

You’ll undoubtedly apply it to situations closest to your heart.  It resonates with me and the software I write. Of course we can’t just make up our own requirements, but the final product needs to come from you.

I also hear a call to courage. Don’t be arrogant, but stand your ground. Use your best judgment. Don’t be dulled–or let your project be dulled–by the strongest personalities in the room.

Thoughts?