State of Innovation

Patents and Innovation Economics

Competition is for Losers

This statement is from a Peter Thiel interview.  Peter Thiel is a founder of Paypal, investor in Facebook and many other technology startups.  Mr. Thiel is talking about entrepreneurs and businesses and that you want to create a unique company and dominate your market space.  I have just finished a manuscript for a non-fiction book that makes this point from an economy wide point of view.  Wealth is not created by manufacturing undifferentiated, me-too products, it is created by new technologies.  There is no contradiction between what is good for the economy and what is good for an entrepreneur, despite the statement of economists on perfect competition.

One of Peter Thiel’s interview questions is tell me something you know to be true that no one else knows is true?  How would you answer that question?

My answer is that the source of real per capita growth is inventions and patents, property rights in inventions, are the key to stimulating people to invent, resulting in the Industrial Revolution and our present standard of living.

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November 6, 2014 Posted by | -Economics, Innovation, News, Videos | , | Leave a comment