Patton Oswalt: "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

After today's attack in Boston, a sentiment that deserves repeating (theAtlantic via Instapundit):

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Entrepreneurship ain't just for the young...

It's not exactly a new revelation, but more studies are showing that the average age of entrepreneurs is rising (FT):

But while teenagers make good newspaper headlines, what usually gets ignored is that it is actually their parents’ generation – or people such as Crippen – who are the most active in terms of creating new companies in the US today. Take a look at the data. The Kaufman Foundation (which is dedicated to tracking entrepreneurship) recently analysed the age profile of entrepreneurs and discovered that 34 per cent of them were aged between 35 and 44 and 29 per cent between 45 and 54. Just 18 per cent were under the age of 34 – the same proportion as those over 55. “Entrepreneurship is concentrated among individuals in mid-career, ie between 35 and 44 years of age,” writes Dane Stangler, a researcher at Kaufman.

Admittedly, in some sub-sectors the profile is younger: an MIT study of its graduates, for example, suggests that there are a lot of Zuckerberg wannabes in the computing world; the majority of IT entrepreneurs tend to be in their twenties, and overwhelmingly men. However, what is really notable is that if you look at all sectors of the economy, the age of entrepreneurs seems to be rising, not falling. Back in 2004, a study from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics found that the “bulge” age for entrepreneurs was 25-34, and this was echoed by other research in the 1990s.

"How politics has shaped the growth of Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul"

For reference the next time a politician in the West wishes they could force decisions through like they do in China - compare the economic sustainability and vibrance of Seoul, Shanghai and Beijing (CityJournal via ChinaLawBlog):

One finds the most striking evidence of how politics shapes the new Asian megalopolises in the differences between Seoul, South Korea’s capital, and China’s leading cities. After all, the Korean and Chinese cultures are similar. Both are founded on the hierarchical Confucian philosophy; both have been influenced by Buddhism. But Seoul is democratic, and the political debates of an open society have profoundly influenced its development. China’s cities, by contrast, reflect the autocratic and corrupt rule of the Communist Party. [...]

Shanghai is a “costly facade to maintain,” confesses Yan Hansheng, its deputy mayor for finance. The city’s primary financial resources are still its traditional factories, owned mostly by the government, which continue to grind out steel, cars, and textiles. These industries, located west of the city center, remain hidden behind the costly facade; few foreigners ever travel that far. To protect Shanghai’s gleaming appearance further, the government also keeps tight control over the population. Officials view the peasant migrants who work menial jobs in Shanghai as a stain on the Western-oriented city and prevent them from living there or sending their children to local schools. To live permanently in Shanghai, one must be born a Shanghai citizen. (The mother transmits citizenship—a system in effect throughout China.) There are some exceptions, based on merit—holding a university degree helps—or on securing a fake identity card. All other migrants who work in Shanghai, though, must return by night to the shantytowns or shoddy workers’ dormitories at the city’s periphery, far from the cosmopolitan city center.

Staying Motivated by Finding Meaning in Your Work

I get the sense that most of us don't take enough time to consider the value we provide for those around us and how this fits in with what we see as our "purpose" in life. Dan Ariely's TED talk on finding meaning and staying motivated (TED via LifeHacker):

SurveyMonkey's CEO on Culture

FirstRound via HN:

Corporate culture isn’t your company’s ping-pong table. It’s not your catered lunch. It’s not the posters you tape onto the office walls. A real culture is the cumulative effect of productive relationships among employees. Those relationships can take years to develop. And they don’t always work out.

"Crowdsourcing Economics"

An interesting way to fund useful research... though on the other hand, given there's real commercial value for this research, you'd think there would other be viable alternatives (Freakonomics):

The typical household in rural Africa is “off the grid.” With no electricity, such households spend a significant fraction of their income on kerosene for lamps. Yet for about $20, they can buy a solar light, which provides a superior source of light and charges their cell phones. (Yes, cell phone use is common, even in rural households with no electricity; they simply walk to the nearest town and pay to charge their phones.) Given that the light pays for itself in about 6 weeks and lasts for about 3 years, purchasing one seems like a no-brainer. Yet few households have done so. These intrepid economists are trying to figure out why, and want to see whether the barriers to adoption can be overcome in a profitable way. In order to do so, they are running controlled experiments in rural Ugandan villages using various combinations of incentives and financing arrangements.

It’s a terrific and important research question. The only barrier is that they need funding for their research. So they’re trying something new: crowdfunding.

Trading off between Social Impact and Financial Results?

Acumen Fund's Blog cites Linda Rottenberg, CEO of Endeavour who argues (HBR):

“If you want to scale impact,” the headline booms, “put financial results first…[and] when tradeoffs must be made, prioritize financial goals over social ones to maximize the long-term sustainability of the business.”

In a way, this is the flip side of Simon Sinek's comments. Acumen Fund Blog notes a similar reservation that I have on the quote.

To be fair, Linda expands - from HBR:

We found that those who prioritized financial goals over social ones were more likely to grow their social enterprises and achieve greater impact. We also discovered ways to build business models that reduced friction between commercial and social goals, thereby smoothing the path to growth.

The revenues generated from a firm come from the social need that a firm meets. In general, profit comes from better resource allocation - arbitrage and innovation. The idea that either financial or social goals need to be "moderated" is just a false dichotomy - all enterprise is social enterprise.

The GOP's real problem with Immigration

Doing too much rather than too little - that it's not living up to its small government principles when it comes to immigration (Reason via Instapundit). It's also perhaps part of the reason for the appeal of more immigrants towards the Conservative Party in Canada:

So how do Republicans manage to alienate nearly every minority? By applying limited-government principles very selectively. During the last 50 years the GOP has opposed welfare handouts, racial preferences, and multiculturalism. Yet the Party of Lincoln has looked the other way when the government has oppressed minorities through racial profiling, discriminatory sentencing laws, and, above all, immigration policy.

America’s immigration laws are an exercise in social engineering that should offend any sincere believer in limited government. They strictly limit the number of foreigners allowed from any one country, largely to prevent America from being overrun by Hispanics and Asians.

The result: Highly skilled foreigners from India and China have to wait up to two decades to convert their temporary work visas (H1-Bs) to green cards or permanent residency. During this time, they can’t change jobs, and their spouses can’t work. But they have it good compared to low-skilled Hispanics.

The Privatization of Roads and Highways

Interesting (but long - it's a full 1h37m and at times seemingly politically impractical but comprehensive) look at the case for the privatization of roads and highways from Walter Block (via Instapundit whose Glenn Reynolds is also a moderator/panelist of the talk):

Poverty is a Policy Choice

The good news, is that there's been an improvement but Africa remains one of the most difficult places in the world to start a business (HuffingtonPost):

Most Sub-Saharan countries made doing business easier over the past year, but the African region is still the costliest and most complex in the world for entrepreneurs, the World Bank said in a report Thursday.

In its annual ranking of 183 countries, the bank found 36 of 46 Sub-Saharan African nations improved their business environment in the year through June 2011, the highest number since the study began nine years ago.

"We were very excited about Africa's improvement," said Mikiko Imai Ollison, one of the authors of the report. "Obviously, Africa has a lot to catch up on. It's the region with the weakest legal institutions as well as the least efficient procedures."

Of course this also represents an opportunity. Where are the not-for-profits or even for-profits that help other entrepreneurs affordably and quickly get through the red tape? That could be revolutionary for building entrepreneurship in Africa.

Simon Sinek: "Purpose Can Not Be Rationalized"

Simon Sinek via Swissmiss:

Because a true sense of purpose is deeply emotional, it serves as a compass to guide us to act in a way completely consistent with our values and beliefs. Purpose does not need to involve calculations or numbers. Purpose is about the quality of life. Purpose is human, not economic.

It's too bad that we're conditioned to think that altruism and money are incompatible. In posting this, Simon Sinek tells the story of how he is choosing not to work with an organization whose values are not consistent with his.

It's too bad because I'd entirely agree with him except for that last bit. To be human is to be economic. Where purpose isn't "economic" suggests that the purpose is by definition a self serving one and has no value to others - but with alignment (given the example that Sinek gives), comes real satisfaction.

This isn't about sacrificing your values but being true to them. It sometimes means difficult tradeoffs, choices and yes, even costs in the short run - but as an altruist, in the long run, I tend to believe that doing the right thing tends to also be the profitable one.

Tyranny, Taxi Medallions and the Train of Disruption

Technology strikes again as a power for democratization. A reminder that governments rarely let go over power easily - particularly given entrenched interests and what we'll call regulatory capture (Pricenomics via HN):

A number of mobile phone apps, however, are replacing taxi dispatch services and allowing anyone with a car to become a taxi driver without needing access to a medallion. Increasingly, if you want to become a taxi driver, all you need is a car and an app that tells you where to pick up passengers. [...]

The ride-sharing economy started conservatively with Uber allowing anyone to call a black town car via its app. That quickly led to companies like Sidecar and Lyft, that let anyone with a car act as a taxi driver and hybrid services like InstantCab that lets taxi drivers and community drivers both get fares. These companies and their products are called “ride-sharing” apps.

Cheekily, if you hail a ride using one of these ride-sharing apps, the payment is called a “donation.” This sort of seems like a made up legal loophole that can justify any behavior (“Officer I wasn’t paying for sex, I was making a donation!”). But for now that’s one of the ways ride-sharing apps nominally get around local regulations that restrict who can be a taxi.

It's a good article and one that can't help but make you a bit mad if you aren't one of the few who own taxi medallions. Read the whole thing.

The distinction between being "pro-business" and "pro-markets"

It's one I wish those who were pro-markets would make more often (Yahoo via Instapundit):

During Jeb Hensarling's first congressional bid, a man at a campaign stop in Athens, Texas, asked the Republican if he was "pro-business."

"No," the candidate replied, drawing curious stares from local business leaders who had gathered to hear him speak, a former Hensarling aide recalled. "I'm not pro-business. I'm pro-free enterprise." Associated Press Rep. Jeb Hensarling

Now, more than a decade later, that distinction has Wall Street on edge. The new chairman of the House financial services committee wants to limit taxpayers' exposure to banking, insurance and mortgage lending by unwinding government control of institutions and programs the private sector depends on, from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to flood insurance.

Banks and other large financial institutions are particularly concerned because Mr. Hensarling plans to push legislation that could require them to hold significantly more capital and establish new barriers between their federally insured deposits and other activities, including trading and investment banking.

Ayah Bdeir@TED: Building blocks that blink, beep and teach

A cool idea. Democratizing electronics:

Down with the Minimum Wage, Up with Minimum Income

Not a new idea. But an idea whose time has hopefully come (FinancialPost):

The alternative to the minimum wage is a minimum income: paid not by employers, but by the state.

The minimum wage is typical of so many bad policies, in so far as it attempts to solve a distributional problem — some people’s incomes are too low — with an instrument designed for a very different purpose. Wages are a kind of price: their role is to connect buyers and sellers in the market for labour in such a way as to ensure there are no shortages and surpluses. Stop them from doing that, and shortages and surpluses you will get.

Fixing wages and prices in this way isn’t an example of Big Government; it’s rather what I call phoney small government. Part of its appeal is that it appears less interventionist than the alternative, as proposed by that early economist Robin Hood: Take from the rich and give to the poor. But it isn’t. It’s just less effective. Pass a law demanding that employers pay each worker a higher wage than they’d prefer to pay, and they have an easy (and perfectly legal) way to avoid it: hire fewer workers. Whereas the Canada Revenue Agency is rather harder to get around.

Social obligations should be socially financed. As a collective ideal, distributional justice is ill-suited to being pursued through markets. That’s not what they’re for. Let us stop shunting our responsibility off on others. In place of the minimum wage, let us fix a minimum income.

Innovation in its many forms

I see a visit to Pizza Hut in my near future. (Wired via Instapundit):

It’s an industry that Americans pioneered and continue to dominate. Homegrown brands are expanding throughout the developing world. The uniform customer experiences they provide are triumphs of industrial engineering and efficiency systems management. And they are constantly spending money to create and introduce new products.”

Can Computers Replace Teachers?

It's 20 minutes well spent for anyone interested in teaching/education policy - a good overview highlighting some of the successes in blended learning (Reason.tv):

The Best Trust Busters

From Fred Wilson:

Monopolies aren't great for society. So we have trust busters in government whose job it is to keep the monopolies in check. But they don't do that so well. And our government is pretty good at handing monopolies out. Just look at the cable industry.

A few entrepreneurs in a garage. Or a few hackers on the Internet. They are the best trust busters of them all. Look what open source Linux did to Microsoft. They put a dent in a machine that the government could not. And look at what Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber did to the medallion owners in San Franscisco. They got cabs on the streets when the government could not.

Massive innovation doesn't just happen in Silicon Valley

I post this as I chomp down on Kettle Chips from Costco, which is unfortunately *not* paleo compliant (via Greg Mankiw):

Yep, pretty much...

via ohgizmo: