What if we looked at new ideas as a combination of all the previous good ideas they contained, instead of as completely new inventions. The Macintosh wasn't the first computer, the first GUI, or the first mouse. The Model T wasn't the first combustion engine, the first car or the first Ford. The same goes for the iPod and the the incandescent lightbulb.

The new ideas that become truly influential are a combination of previously proven ideas that in their totality turn into something special. The genius of innovation is almost never a revolutionary new idea. Most often innovation is combining a series of previously unrelated items into something that by nature of their combination becomes new and remarkable.