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Always Steal from the Best

Written by: Paul Kedrosky

Article Overview: I'm a big fan of all things to do with the creative process, so the following unsurprisingly struck my fancy. It is from a fascinating BBC documentary on the origins of the original BBC version of The Office.

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Always Steal from the Best

I'm a big fan of all things to do with the creative process, so the following unsurprisingly struck my fancy. It is from a fascinating BBC documentary on the origins of the original BBC version of The Office.
In this exchange, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the series's creators, talk about where their ideas came from, and they unapologetically concede that they came via stealing from others, but not just any others -- the best:

Ricky Gervais: We ripped off the best.
Stephen Merchant: No, there's not one new idea in that whole goddamn show.
Rick Gervais: We ripped off Laurel & Hardy, The Simpsons, Spinal Tap, and what was the other one you said?
Stephen Merchant: Woody Allen. Larry Sanders.
Ricky Gervais: We ripped them all off.
Stephen Merchant: And we got away with it.

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Home > Entrepreneur-Advice > Paul Kedrosky > Always Steal from the Best
Article Tags: bbc, bbc documentary, bbc version, besti, creative process, creators, origins, ricky, ricky gervais, stephen merchant

About the Author: Paul Kedrosky
RSS for Paul's articles - Visit Paul's website

Dr. Kedrosky is currently the Executive Director of the William J. von Liebig Center in San Diego, California. Using an innovative seed capital program, the Center catalyzes the commercialization of technologies from the internationally-ranked University of California, San Diego. Dr. Kedrosky is also a venture investor with Ventures West, Canada's largest institutional venture capital firm, where he is most active in consumer technologies and software. He is currently on the board of Marqui Corporation, a marketing automation software company.

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