The Chaos Imperative: How Chance and Disruption Increase Innovation, Effectiveness, and Success by Ori Brafman

Author:Ori Brafman [Brafman, Ori]
Format: epub
Publisher: Piatkus
Published: 2013-08-12T16:00:00+00:00

From LSD to PCR

Joe Neilands, the renowned UC Berkeley biochemistry professor, looked me in the eye and said, “We’re going to have a problem.”

I squirmed in my chair. Joe was greatly respected in his field, and I feared I had offended him with my request. He had first arrived at the university in 1951 and soon became an institution championing social causes, from traveling to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War to document human rights abuses to (successfully) taking on the university and the largest public utility in California. When I’d first shaken his hand, I had noticed that one of his fingers was missing—an injury he’d sustained while building his house with his own hands.

I had come to Neilands as an undergraduate to see if he’d be willing to be my academic advisor. To say I was nervous was an understatement. The endless rows of graduate students hunkered down over their test tubes and microscopes in the lab were intimidating; potentially breakthrough science was being conducted before my eyes. By the time I found myself sitting in his office, I had broken into a sweat at the thought of making my request. What if he turned me down?

“The problem is,” he went on, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the bureaucracy of this university. As far as I’m concerned, you can take whatever classes you please. So I don’t know how much I can actually advise you.”

My relief that he wasn’t angry at me or turning me down was so great that I let out a short laugh. “That kind of advice,” I replied, “would suit me perfectly.”

Over the succeeding years, Neilands became a mentor and a friend. Whenever I came to his office, he’d share stories about his most recent political crusade or the latest discovery in biochemistry. But one thing that Neilands said has stayed with me for years.

Early on I made an offhand comment about protestors in Sproul Plaza and how out of control the situation seemed. “I wish they weren’t so eager to protest,” I told Neilands. “It seems like Berkeley has been overrun by the counterculture.”

Seeing the look on his face, I instantly knew that my words had upset him.

“To me these protests are a field of a thousand flowers,” he said. “I say, let them all bloom.” He put on his coat and hat, stood up, and continued, “Let me show you something.”

I followed him down the corridor to a lab filled with beakers, tubes, and metal tables. “Of all the dozens of graduate students who’ve come through this lab, only one has received the Nobel Prize: Kary Mullis.”

Kary Mullis, he told me, grew up in Lenoir, North Carolina, and went to college at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he majored in chemistry. In 1966 he was accepted into the biochemistry PhD program at Berkeley.

“Back in the day, he’d sit there in the corner of the lab and concoct chemicals that got him into all sorts of trouble. He tried to synthesize LSD; he even nearly blew up the entire building one day.

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