Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age

What is now known as the “tech backlash” seems to be underpinned by a generalized and widespread fear for economic security and prosperity in the face of technological change.

This can be seen in how conservatives keep on stressing the importance of “ownership” as the best safety net for households[97], the inflating bubble of student loans, or the excessive reliance on consumption driven by credit card debt. With the financial system as the only mechanism for sustaining production and consumption, today’s problem is les

For a long time in the business world, the drive to become bigger was motivated by the pursuit of supply-side economies of scale[221]. As centuries of business have taught us, the bigger you are, the lower your marginal cost. Lowering unit costs is what economies of scale were all about. And yet economies of scale reach their limits soon enough. Co

The Venetian Republic is an illustration of a rare model of power: the thalassocracy, or a state with primarily maritime realms and the means to defend and expand them. History provides us with only a few examples of that combination of political, military, and economic resources, from the Republic of Venice to the Portuguese empire in the fifteent

And so a tech company can be defined as a firm that features increasing returns to scale together with two other additional criteria. One is that it must provide its customers with an exceptional experience (high quality at scale), as serving customers well is the only way to inspire trust and retain those users that are so critical for sustaining

Yet initial learning should in fact be less about practice and more about abstract frameworks. What matters when you’re young is fundamental, imperishable knowledge such as reading, writing, counting, reasoning, learning history, and practicing foreign languages. It’s also about the people you get to know. In an economy dominated by networks, the g

Now is the time to reinvent consumer finance with the same spirit of creativity. We should learn to do for hunting individuals in the Entrepreneurial Age what Henry Goldman did for retailers a century ago: provide them with access to capital not based on what they own (the old paradigm of homeownership for settlers), but on what they might earn in

Ballooning student loans in the US are a sign of the current system's inability to meet today's challenges. Investing heavily in initial training is relevant if the goal is to settle in one particular profession. But it is poor preparation for a career during which an individual will frequently switch jobs. In addition, entering one’s working life

Key takeaways ● The shift to the Entrepreneurial Age calls for a new breed of consumer finance, one that is focused on facilitating career shifts rather than buying physical assets like houses and cars on credit. ● We need to harness technology to provide better insurance against critical risks. With adequate regulations, the market has the potenti