How do We Fuel the Law of Accelerating Returns?
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Will the new Health Care Plan hurt Entrepreneurs? Listen to Stacey Blackman’s from BNET offer her observations:
Because the plan calls for businesses with over 25 employees to provide mandatory health coverage or be fined 8 percent of its payroll, McGrath believes this will not only have an ill effect on small business, but our economy as a whole. She writes:
With small business growth having led us out of most recessions in the past, get ready for this sector to add jobs far more slowly and with far greater caution than it had previously — a big blow to an economy that desperately needs a vibrant and growing small business sector.
McGrath also notes that under the plan households that make above $350,000 will face a surtax to pay for medical care. She believes that many of those taxed will be small business owners and entrepreneurs who would otherwise use that money not for luxuries, but for “working capital, inventory, marketing and other unglamorous business necessities.”
Ray Kurzweil is one of the most recognized inventors of the last 4 decades. Inc. Magazine calls him “the rightful heir to Thomas Edison”, the Wall Street Journal refers to him as “the restless genius” and Forbes, “the ultimate thinking machine.” Kurzweil made this fascinating “entrepreneurial’ statement in his futuristic work, The Singularity is Near:
It’s the economic imperative of a competitive marketplace that is the primary force driving technology forward and fueling the law of accelerating returns.
I remember reading an article in the Wall Street Journal almost twenty years ago when National Health Care first appeared on our radar. When asked about the impact on his practice, a Canadian surgeon identified that he was surviving despite having to use equipment over twenty years old.
Twenty years old? That means if you need your gallbladder removed today you would face over three weeks of recovery due to the necessity of receiving a subcostal incision across muscle in a 60 minute procedure rather than playing golf two days later after a 15 minute laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
Listen to Kurzweil: Drive Technology + Competitive Marketplace = Accelerating Returns, which produces what? Entrepreneurial incentive to act on their ideas, risk their resources on future rewards and… CREATE JOBS!
Or have your gallbladder removed the old way. I’ll set our tee time for mid-October.
The Ninjas of Innovation
Innovators seek to improve capabilities by multiples. Innovation is multiplicative, not additive - from Ray Kurzweil‘s book, The Singularity is Near
Entrepreneurs are, without question, the ninjas of innovation. Who else keeps his/her radar on Defcon 1 always alert for a problem they can solve? Who else, by solving that problem increases energy efficiency, extends quality of life, equips us to enjoy entertainment on the go with “1000 tools in our pocket” and generates over 86% of jobs in this country?
I love it when entrepreneur inventors present at TED (www.TED.com) like these scary genius nut-cases:
Where does Google find the arrows to fill their portfolio quiver? Where does GE, Sysco, IBM and every other Fortune 500 company find it’s new idea to scale? The Ninjas of course! Generating a new idea in GE is like turning a barge around in a retention pond. The F500 don’t innovate, they BUY great ideas from our Economy Heroes and cast their ample resources into the fledgling infrastructure to produce 10x fold.
So if Entrepreneurs are the ground zero of our nation’s innovation, and if they generate over 85% of jobs why would we want to discourage them with higher taxation and a national health care mandate that decimates incentive to create and take risk? I remember reading a WSJ article several years ago about Canadian health care. A statement buried in the text referenced a particular doctor and how he was able to continue his surgical practice at the hospital even though he was forced to use technology over fifteen years old.
Fifteen years? Can you imagine what lives have been saved and/or quality of life extended by medical innovations created in the last 15 years? How about PSA testing? How about robotic surgery? How about regional anesthesia and advanced MRI for brain surgery? And let’s don’t even start about Viagra…
The point is, we NEED our Ninjas to continue hanging their derrieres out the window in hopes of launching the next disruptive product that will greatly improve our lives. We want a Dan Kamen (see video above) to stay in the game so that he can perfect an artificial arm. The coolest part of innovation with Economy Heroes – for the most part they create because they are passionate about their solution. They risk, not only for financial reward (making money is ok with you, isn’t it?), but also to make a difference.
Let’s get behind our Economy Heroes. Do they need a tax deferral (like The Bridge Act) – by all means let them have it. Do they need less regulations and federal constraints – FREEEEEDOM!
Creating jobs and increasing innovation isn’t hard – just make a path for our Innovation Ninjas and get out of the way, they will do the rest.
Brent Sapp
