I went to a private grammer school, they couldn't afford a xerox machine but what I think what worked about the school is that they did more teaching and were very attuned to how each person is doing.
"my own position is we ought to have a temporary moratorium until we finally resolve the issue of how the states are going to support public services with an eroding tax base predicated on the growth of e-commerce."
If something is worthless because people will not give you money for it ("make something people want"), then there is nothing inherent in ideas that makes them worthless.
It is simply the fact that most people would not pay you for ideas that make them generally not a profitable endeavor.
"How would a market for ideas work, in any case? How could you prevent someone from listening to a bunch of ideas and just walking away with the ones they like?"
-- your blog post
Which makes the transaction costs higher than the idea is probably worth. Execution is very important, and in an ideas market, there would probably also be a lot of crappy ones. So, you have to sign a bunch of NDA like contracts, risk being sued if you ever develop anything like the things you may have seen, and probably also have to wade through a lot of junk.
While it might be sort of doable, it's probably not worth it until we have a magic pill that lets you forget the last 5 minutes of your life completely and totally.
It's evidence that the value of ideas, on aggregate, is low (which makes sense), but doesn't point to a value of 0, just lower than the transaction costs inherent in the attempt to create a market for a more or less non excludable good. Markets do best when there is sufficient information, and so a market based around secrecy and potential lawsuits isn't going to be a very good one. Look at software patents, for instance... it's not a very nice or healthy market.
I think you can infer it. There are studies on people who have to work for long periods in isolated environments (and high stress), to those in isolation that aren't working.
When it comes down to it, we don't do well alone.
If you want to have word play and add additions like.. I'm alone and a startup, but I have a fantastic group of individuals I surround myself with...or I have a family that really cares. That's not really alone is it?
I don't see many isolated entrepreneurs that stay alone and never give up the control--and grow. How would you hire and instill passion? How would you not have a motley crew of cog creators?
Having a partner, or general support, is the groundwork for a network. A network is what allows us all to play, create, and grow.
