Applied Emergence
Mapping Paths to Tech Viability.
Crafting Breakthroughs.
Led by Phil Watson,
former Director of R&D at Google X
As Stephen Hawking predicted, we are living in a "century of complexity." The world isn't just speeding up; feedback loops and emergent effects create paralyzing uncertainty where intuitions fail and unnoticed shifts steer system outcomes.
At Applied Emergence, we respect the complexity. We dig into the weeds to map the underlying causal factors of your system... and where appropriate, we wield mind-extending tools—including AI-enhanced simulations and network analysis—to pierce the fog, transforming paralyzing complexity into a clear, actionable path forward.
Thesis
Phil Watson combines a Ph.D. in Physics with 25 years of R&D and organizational leadership experience, including his tenure as a Director of R&D and project GM at Google X (The Moonshot Factory).
There, he led new project creation and was instrumental in shaping the lab's innovation culture. A builder and inventor with more than 50 issued US patents, he’s comfortable diving into technical and ecosystem-level challenges, organizational architecture debugging, and training — as well as a variety of other topics — with his extended team.
Founder / Director
How We Engage
Lab Notebook:
Exploring system behaviors through proprietary socio-technnical research and interaction modeling
Structural Transformation and Collapse of Markets with AI influx
Exploring Selective Permeability of Content in Social Networks
Mapping Efficiency Frontiers
of Corporate Incentives
Observing connectivity evolution in a matrixed product organization
