The Value of Misperceptions

Director of Google Ideas Jared Cohen encourages audiences to pursue ideas without obvious conclusions in this intellectually adventurous keynote. After years of interviewing young radical extremism, Cohen drew from this research to launch an unexpected program. Cohen shows the misperceptions of extremists after retracing these militants’ socialization process. He concludes that it is less about religious or ideological but instead a youth issue. Feeling moments of alienation, young people do not have an alternative to divert them from being recruited to these groups along with gangs. 

Through Google Ideas, Cohen is bringing together former militants and extremists from all around the world. This is unexpected from a company like Google, but by bringing these perspectives together, it is organizing the world’s information and making it useful by allowing everybody to have access to it and learn from it.

From this program, Cohen created takeaways for the audience, stating that for an idea to come into fruition people need to be unbelievably excited by it, spreading that passion to others who are willing to take a risk.