Cleverness is not highly valued enough. Cleverness is the trait that brings us simple elegant solutions like the Power Squid, the streamlined keyhole, the overarching highway-transport system. All are simple ideas, in contrast to the incredibly complex ones we tend to teach students and employees how to create.

We tend to dismiss cleverness as luck. “Geez, that’s not so complicated, that guy just happened to think of it before me.” I think we’ve got it completely backwards. We should dismiss complicated multi-faceted solutions, and instead be enamored and impressed by elegance and cleverness.