Dominique Crenn: The rebel chef's guide to innovation | Big Think Live

More and more of us are going to struggle to out-compete software artificial intelligence. We have to start evolving. If people want to stay ahead and gain the skills that they need to be on top of their game and their careers, they're going to need to keep learning soft skills—how to deal with human behavior and how to adjust to things that are changing in real time. That's an area that's very, very difficult for computers, but humans have a huge advantage.

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Anybody can look at their craft, their profession, their passion, and become better. It's about finding that edge. Welcome everyone to Big Think Live. I am Jason Olson, one of the editors of Big Think. Today's topic is the rebel chef's guide to innovation, and we are happy to welcome Dominique Krenn live on. I think—hello, hello, chef! How are you today?

Amazing! Thank you for having me. Um, great! It's a very, uh, different time, but I'm happy. So good to hear. Um, one of the things that you said in "Rebel Chef" that I resonated with and I really appreciated was that you love France on a mineral, mineral level.

Um, before we got into, you know, all the ins and outs of your innovation and what you've created with italia kren, I want to get a little bit of context for the audience of where you come from and, um, and your French past. Uh, so you are sort of both—you’re from both the Versailles region but also Brittany. Can you share a little bit about where you come from and your origins?

Yeah, sure. Um, thank you for having me on the show, first of all. I'm so grateful to be here and talking to you today. Um, so I was born and raised just right outside of Paris, which is a city called Versailles, which is about, we'll say, 10-15 minutes from Paris.

Um, I was lucky enough—so I was abandoned when I was six months old, and I was lucky enough to, uh, to have, uh, to be adopted by two wonderful, uh, human beings that originated from Brittany, which is, uh, on the west part of France, by the water, the Atlantic—a very Celtic place.

And, um, so, um, I spent, you know, we lived outside of Paris, but I spent most of my time in Brittany, where my parents come from, my adoptive parents come from. And Brittany is a beautiful place in France, maybe often not as known as the south of France, but you— you leak. I mean, you've been to Brittany.

Uh, Brittany used to, uh, to be its own country up to, do I think, the 14th century? Uh, the last queen's name was Queen Anne, and they had their own language, which is a language—it's not a dialect; it's a language actually that you can take, as well as, um, Spanish or English or German at school.

And it's very Celtic—so very, um, a lot of, um, I will say, you know, Ireland, you know, England. And it's a very—it's one of the most beautiful, I think, places in France. It's very raw; it's very, it's very pure.

Um, sounds like already somewhat of an independent, uh, spirit in Brittany.

Oh yeah, the Bretons are very independent. They've been, you know, they've been fighting, like the Basque in France; they want their independence, you know? I mean, but it’s interesting because it's a place that during election—it's a very important place to any candidate that wants to be elected as president, because the Bretons have the voice to change one way or the other because, you know, this is a farmland. It's all with farmers and things like that.

And if you don't make the Breton happy, then you don't politically. So, but very loyal, very dedicated, very hard-working people, and just beautiful people, you know? So, um, it's just, um, it's a place that I found, uh, when I was younger, uh, a place of reflection, a place of looking at the world differently. It's a place by the city, and you...