David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

the social structure, you’re not going to
put your ideas forward.” As the
playwright George Bernard Shaw once
put it: “The reasonable man adapts
himself to the world: the unreasonable
one persists in trying to adapt the world
to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.”
A good example of Peterson’s
argument is the story of how the Swedish
furniture retailer IKEA got its start. The
company was founded by Ingvar
Kamprad. His great innovation was to
realize that much of the cost of furniture
was tied up in its assembly: putting the
legs on the table not only costs money
but also makes shipping the table really
expensive. So he sold furniture that