Invention, Creativity, and Job Hunting

I though this was a pretty thought-provoking idea from Ragan Wald:

“I suggest that if you haven’t thought about your personal bias with respect to invention before, you take some time to work out how you really feel about inventing new things.”

He is suggesting that when you’re interviewing with a company, find out the team’s stance on invention. For example:

“Do they…
* deliver working software, and see invention as a fickle mistress that can delay and derail delivery far more often than she assists it?
* find a place to create value though differentiation?
* go out of their way to avoid invention?
* use an existing plug-in for authentication, but create their own code for something central to the value proposition of the application they are developing?”