In order to make something great you only need to change the existing layer by 3%.

I think most people are held back by the fear of not producing something completely original. Nothing is so good that it can’t be made better. Many of the most innovative companies of our generation have been made from tweaking an existing layer by 3% and then building upon that.

Yesterday, Snap was named the world’s most innovative company of 2020. When it started in 2011, Snapchat was not a completely novel idea. We already had the ability to send messages and photos through SMS and other various apps. Snapchat tweaked the existing layer of communication on the internet by adding ephemerality.

Obviously Snap has grown to do more than ephemeral messaging, but the core product philosophy remains the same. Reinvent the camera to improve the way people live and communicate. They tweaked the existing...