Kurt Vonnegut once said he wanted to stay as close to the edge as he could without going over. Out on the edge, he argued, you see things you simply cannot see from the center.
Lindsey Vonn built a career on exactly that. The greatest American ski racer in history found paths down the mountain that no one else could see, balancing the pull of the fall line against speed most competitors weren't willing to carry. Lewis Hamilton does the same on a grand prix circuit. His edge over other world-class drivers isn't raw speed. It's sensitivity. He operates closer to the limit of traction than anyone else, which means he carries momentum through corners that others have to surrender.
Both are doing the same thing: finding more by risking more, with enough control to stay on the right side of the line.
This isn't just an athletic phenomenon. IDEO, the design firm behind some of the most consequential product innovations of the past forty years, built a methodology around it. They call it "empathy on the edge." Their researchers deliberately seek out people living at the extremes of behavior, culture, and circumstance because that's where the future shows up first. As William Gibson put it, the future is already here; it just isn't evenly distributed yet.
The people and ideas at the fringes aren't outliers to be dismissed. They're early signals.
So here is what I keep coming back to: If the most important insights live at the edge, why do most organizations keep rewarding people for staying in the center?
-Marc
You can always reach me @ marc@brigadoon.live.
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+ Brigadoon organizes gatherings for founders, investors, journalists, doctors, designers, architects, and civic leaders. No PowerPoints, no panels, no name tags. Just a deliberately varied group in conversation, with radical curiosity as the only agenda, and an honest acknowledgment that the ROI is unknown, and that is exactly the point. More @ www.brigadoon.live.
March 31, 2026
