Edison filed patent applications as fast as the ideas arrived.
Source:
Stross, Randall E. The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World. New York: Crown Publishers, 2007.
Category: Economics of Technology
Edison Sold Half-Interest in Some Patents, to Fund His Inventing
Stross discusses Edison’s inventing at age 21:
(p. 8) Edison soon sought investors who would provide funds in exchange for half-interest in resulting patents.
Source:
Stross, Randall E. The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World. New York: Crown Publishers, 2007.
Nasaw Claims Carnegie Believed in Importance of Basic Scientific Research
But notice that the two main examples of what Carnegie himself chose to fund (the Wilson Observatory and the yacht to collect geophysical data), were empirically oriented, not theoretically oriented.
(p. 480) Carnegie was, as Harvard President James Bryant Conant would comment in 1935 on the centenary of his birth, “more than a generation ahead of most business men of this country [in understanding] the importance of science to industry.” He recognized far better than his peers how vital basic scientific research was to the applied research that industry fed off. George Ellery Hale, an astronomer and astrophysicist, later to be the chief architect of the National Research Council, was astounded when he learned of Carnegie’s commitment to pure research. “The provision of a large endowment solely for scientific research seemed almost too good to be true…. Knowing as I did the difficulties of obtaining money for this purpose and (p. 481) devoted as I was to research rather than teaching, I could appreciate some of the possibilities of such an endowment.” Hale applied for funds to build an observatory on Mount Wilson in California, and got what he asked for. It would take until 1909 to build and install a 60-inch reflecting telescope in the observatory; in 1917, a second 100-inch telescope, the largest in the world, was added.
The Mount Wilson Observatory– and the work of its astronomers and astrophysicists– was only one of the projects funded in the early years of the new institution. Another, of which Carnegie was equally proud, was the outfitting of the Carnegie, an oceangoing yacht with auxiliary engine, built of wood and bronze so that it could collect geophysical data without the errors inflicted on compass readings by iron and steel. The ship was launched in 1909; by 1911, Carnegie could claim that the scientists on board had already been able to correct several significant errors on navigational maps.
Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: ellipsis, and italics, in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)
Carnegie’s Not-Fully-Grown-Infant-Industry Argument for Steel Tariffs
(p. 375) The steel industry was doubly dependent on state and national governments for the generous loans and subsidies that fueled railway expansion and rail purchases and the protective tariffs that enabled the manufacturers to keep their prices–and profits–higher than would have been possible had they been compelled to compete with European steelmakers. If, in the beginning, as Carnegie had argued, the tariff had been needed to nurture an infant steel industry, by the mid-1880s that infant had become a strapping, abrasive youth, who kept on growing. Why then, one might inconveniently ask, was there need for a protective tariff? Because, as Carnegie argued in the North American Review in July 1890, the steel industry was not yet fully grown and would have to be protected until it was.
On the issue of the tariff–as on few others–Pittsburgh’s workingmen were in agreement with Carnegie. They voted Republican in large numbers because the Republicans were the guardians of the protective tariff, and the tariff, they believed, protected their wage rates.
The argument linking the tariff and wages in the manufacturing sector was a compelling one in the industrial states, but nowhere else. As the Democrats took great delight in pointing out, high tariffs led to high prices for all consumers.
Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: italics in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)
Hero Rebels Against the Bureau of Technology Control
Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.
(p. D8) In “Influx,” . . . , a sinister Bureau of Technology Control kidnaps scientists that have developed breakthrough technologies (the cure to cancer, immortality, true artificial intelligence), and is withholding their discoveries from humanity, out of concern over the massive social disruption they would cause. “We don’t have a perfect record–Steve Jobs was a tricky one–but we’ve managed to catch most of the big disrupters before they’ve brought about uncontrolled social change,” says the head of the bureau, the book’s villain. The hero has developed a “gravity mirror” but refuses to cooperate, despite the best efforts of Alexa, who has been genetically engineered by the Bureau to be both impossibly sexy and brilliant.
In the publishing world, there is a growing sense that “Influx,” Mr. Suarez’s fourth novel, may be his breakout book and propel him into the void left by the deaths of Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton. “Influx’ has Mr. Suarez’s largest initial print run, 50,000 copies, and Twentieth Century Fox bought the movie rights last month.
An English major at the University of Delaware with a knack for computers, Mr. Suarez started a consulting firm in 1997, working with companies like Nestlé on complex production and logistics-planning issues. “You only want to move 100 million pounds of sugar once,” says Mr. Suarez, 49 years old.
He began writing in his free-time. Rejected by 48 literary agents–(a database expert, he kept careful track)–he began self-publishing in 2006 under the name Leinad Zeraus, his named spelled backward. His sophisticated tech knowledge quickly attracted a cult following in Silicon Valley, Redmond, Wash., and Cambridge, Mass. The MIT bookstore was the first bookstore to stock his self-published books in 2007.
For the full review, see:
EBEN SHAPIRO. “Daniel Suarez Sees Into the Future.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Feb. 7, 2014): D8.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Feb. 5, 2014, and the title “Daniel Suarez Sees Into the Future.”)
The book under review, is:
Suarez, Daniel. Influx. New York: Dutton, 2014.
Author of Influx, Daniel Suarez. Source of photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.
The Young, with Managerial Experience, Are Most Likely to Become Entrepreneurs
(p. A13) In a current study analyzing the most recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey, my colleagues James Liang, Jackie Wang and I found that there is a strong correlation between youth and entrepreneurship. The GEM survey is an annual assessment of the “entrepreneurial activity, aspirations and attitudes” of thousands of individuals across 65 countries.
In our study of GEM data, which will be issued early next year, we found that young societies tend to generate more new businesses than older societies. Young people are more energetic and have many innovative ideas. But starting a successful business requires more than ideas. Business acumen is essential to the entrepreneur. Previous positions of responsibility in companies provide the skills needed to successfully start businesses, and young workers often do not hold those positions in aging societies, where managerial slots are clogged with older workers.
In earlier work (published in the Journal of Labor Economics, 2005), I found that Stanford MBAs who became entrepreneurs typically worked for others for five to 10 years before starting their own businesses. The GEM data reveal that in the U.S. the entrepreneurship rate peaks for individuals in their late 20s and stays high throughout the 30s. Those in their early 20s have new business ownership rates that are only two-thirds of peak rates. Those in their 50s start businesses at about half the rate of 30-year-olds.
Silicon Valley provides a case in point. Especially during the dot-com era, the Valley was filled with young people who had senior positions in startups. Some of the firms succeeded, but even those that failed provided their managers with valuable business lessons.
My co-author on the GEM study, James Liang, is an example. After spending his early years as a manager at the young and rapidly growing Oracle, he moved back to China to start Ctrip, one of the country’s largest Internet travel sites.
For the full commentary, see:
EDWARD P. LAZEAR. “The Young, the Restless and Economic Growth; Countries with a younger population have far higher rates of entrepreneurship.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Dec. 23, 2013): A13.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Dec. 22, 2013.)
The Lazear paper mentioned above, is:
Lazear, Edward P. “Entrepreneurship.” Journal of Labor Economics 23, no. 4 (October 2005): 649-80.
Incandesce
(p. A11) When I am asked if I want a Compact Fluorescent Light, the only thought I have is that I don’t want my light to be compact, nor do I wish it to be florescent. I want a light that will incandesce across my room, filling it with a familiar yellow surf, and remind me that it was not with wax or kerosene, but with incandescent bulbs that man conquered the night.
. . .
I imagine what will happen when the filaments in my final incandescent bulbs grow weak, and I can hardly read my notes before me. Will I no longer be able to write at night? Or worse, will living with CFLs and LEDs make every day feel like I have just spent nine hours plastered before a computer screen? One day, soon, I will turn on my light and hear for the last time the signature, explosive death rattle of an incandescent bulb, and I’ll hold a vigil for the light that shaped and witnessed more than a century of human history. Tender is the light, Keats might say.
In my lightless room, I’ll sit for a moment and wonder how many more times in my life I’ll watch a bulb go out again. As I look to my dead bulb, I’ll think of the poet again and whisper: Darkling, you were not a piece of technology born for death.
For the full commentary, see:
ALEXANDER ACIMAN. “Tender Is the Light of My Incandescents; Bracing myself for life once the filaments in my beloved bulbs grow weak.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Jan. 31, 2014): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Jan. 30, 2014.)
It Does Not Take a Government to Raise a Railroad
(p. A17) . . . , All Aboard Florida (the train will get a new name this year), is not designed to push political buttons. It won’t go to Tampa. It will zip past several aggrieved towns on Florida’s Treasure Coast without stopping.
Nor will the train qualify as “high speed,” except on a stretch where it will hit 125 miles an hour. Instead of running on a dedicated line, the new service will mostly share existing track with slower freight trains operated by its sister company, the Florida East Coast Railway.
But the sponsoring companies, all owned by the private-equity outfit Fortress Investment Group, appear to have done their sums. By minimizing stops, the line will be competitive with road and air in connecting the beaches, casinos and resorts of Miami and Fort Lauderdale with the big airport and theme-park destination of Orlando. Capturing a small percentage of the 50 million people who travel between these fleshpots, especially European visitors accustomed to intercity rail at home, would let the train cover its costs and then some.
But Fortress has a bigger fish in the pan. Its local operation, Florida East Coast Industries, is a lineal progeny of Henry Flagler, the 1890s entrepreneur who created modern Florida when he built a rail line to support his resort developments. Flagler’s heirs are adopting the same model. A Grand Central-like complex will rise on the site of Miami’s old train station. A similar but smaller edifice is planned for Fort Lauderdale.
The project is a vivid illustration of the factors that have to fall in place to make passenger rail viable nowadays. If the Florida venture succeeds, it would be the only intercity rail service anywhere in the world not dependent on government operating subsidies. It would be the first privately run intercity service in America since the birth of Amtrak in 1971.
For the full commentary, see:
HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR. “BUSINESS WORLD; A Private Railroad Is Born; All Aboard Florida isn’t looking for government operating subsidies.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Jan. 15, 2014): A17.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Jan. 14, 2014.)
Twitter Founders Were Outsiders and Unafraid of Risk
Source of the book image: http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-AF602_bkrvtw_GV_20131031131314.jpg
(p. 20) . . . “Hatching Twitter,” a fast-paced and perceptive new book by Nick Bilton, a columnist and reporter for The New York Times, establishes that uncertainty and dissension about its true purpose has characterized Twitter from its inception.
. . .
The company was financed by Williams, who made a bundle selling Blogger to Google and was intent on proving he wasn’t a one-hit wonder. It rose from the ashes of a failed podcasting enterprise, Odeo, which Williams had bankrolled as a favor to his friend Noah Glass. Bilton sketches the founders’ backgrounds and personalities in quick, skillful strokes that will serve the eventual screenwriter, director and storyboard artist well; these are characters made for the big screen.
None came from money. Ev Williams was a shy Nebraska farm boy whose parents never really understood their socially awkward, computer-obsessed son.
. . .
Having known hardship, none of the four founders were afraid of risk. To join the ill-fated Odeo, Stone walked away from a job at Google, leaving more than $2 million in unvested stock options on the table.
Twitter began with a conversation. Dorsey and Glass sat talking in a car one night in 2006 when Odeo was on the verge of collapse. Dorsey mentioned his “status concept,” which was inspired by AOL’s Instant Messenger “away messages” and LiveJournal status updates that people were using to mention where they were and what they were doing. Glass warmed to the idea, seeing it as a “technology that would erase a feeling that an entire generation felt while staring into their computer screens”: loneliness.
For the full review, see:
MAUD NEWTON. “Four Characters.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., November 3, 2013): 20.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date November 1, 2013.)
Book under review:
Bilton, Nick. Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. New York: Portfolio, 2013.
70 Percent of Current Jobs May Soon Be Done by Robots
Kelly may be right, but it does not imply that we will all be unemployed. What will happen is that new and better jobs, and entrepreneurial opportunities, will be created for humans.
Robots will do the boring, the dangerous, and the physically exhausting. We will do the creative and the analytic, and the social or emotional
(p. A21) Kevin Kelly set off a big debate with a piece in Wired called “Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs.” He asserted that robots will soon be performing 70 percent of existing human jobs. They will do the driving, evaluate CAT scans, even write newspaper articles. We will all have our personal bot to get coffee. There’s already an existing robot named Baxter, who is deliciously easy to train: “To train the bot you simply grab its arms and guide them in the correct motions and sequence. It’s a kind of ‘watch me do this’ routine. Baxter learns the procedure and then repeats it. Any worker is capable of this show-and-tell.”
For the full commentary, see:
DAVID BROOKS. “The Sidney Awards, Part 2.” The New York Times (Tues., December 31, 2013): A21. [National Edition]
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date December 30, 2013.)
The article praised by Brooks is:
Kelly, Kevin. “Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — and Must — Take Our Jobs.” Wired (Jan. 2013).