The Voltage Effect

Be it a medical breakthrough, a policy initiative, a product innovation, or a social movement, translating an idea into widespread impact depends on one thing only: whether it can be replicated at scale.

“Scale” has become a favored buzzword in the startup world. But scale isn’t just about accumulating more users or capturing more market share. It’s about whether an idea that takes hold in a small group can do the same in a much larger one. Scalability is critical to everything from expanding a small business, to narrowing the national achievement gap, to delivering billions of doses of a vaccine, to making a new technology widely affordable—and much more.