III Honeycomb World. Third Story

John Forbes Nash and poker

John Forbes Nash was an American mathematician and he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. In his journey to great recognition, though, there is one nifty adventure, a great example of borrowing ideas from other areas.

Nash, when he was younger, really enjoyed playing poker - it was his way of relaxing and getting complex mathematical equations out of his head. On one occasion, however, he noticed that the game of poker is fundamentally similar to the multi-layered macroeconomic problems he dealt with at work - each player has personal interests, but whether he or she wins or loses and in what order he/she plays cards depends to a large extent on the actions of fellow players. It is exactly the same in business and economy, Nash found - all parties have partial information, and everyone's fate depends to a large extent on how the other participants play their cards, among other things.

Nash began exploring poker strategies more thoroughly to look for ways to implement them in economic decision-making. We now know his work under the name of game theory. Nash and fellow game theorists John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten were awarded the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Since there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics, Nash is one of the few mathematicians to have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

There is no clear path to balance in game theory. Source: Quanta Magazine

How do you and your team look for new ideas? In which areas do you look for ideas to solve your business challenges?

Innovation thinker David Kord Murray argues that many success stories are based on ideas borrowed from other areas. He cites Einstein, who has said that the secret to creativity lies in the ability to hide your sources, or Newton, who said he made his discoveries because he stood on the shoulders of giants, and Darwin, who began developing the theory of evolution after reading Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology".

“No, it's not a call to snoop and steal ideas. It's a call to look for patterns, copy from multiple parties, and create value by combining these findings in a novel way. So look who has a problem with a similar pattern to yours and find out how they've solved it. Start with competitors, then look into other business sectors and finally outside the business world – science, culture, sport, entertainment, etc. Borrow the building material for a new idea from there.”