“One of my guiding principles is don’t do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different if you can. The concept is that if you do it a little differently there is a greater potential for reward than if you do the same thing that other people are doing. I think that this kind of goal for one’s work, having obviously the maximum risk, would have the maximum reward no matter what the field may be.” ~ Electrical engineer Seymour Cray—who made a number of improvements to computer performance and is often credited with inventing the supercomputing industry—explains his approach to doing groundbreaking work.

Source: Interview with David K. Allison, Smithsonian Institution Computer History Project (May 1995)