We believe that the basic source of innovation is human ingenuity—the process of using creative thinking to solve productive challenges. But to benefit from ingenuity, we need to understand the conditions that allow it to function, generate new ideas, and solve challenging problems.

Robert Hendershott is a retired associate professor of finance at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley, and founder of BH Equity Research, an alternative investments consulting firm. Through his work on Ingenuism, he seeks to explain and expand human progress.