The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Economy

“Always keep one hand free,” he instructed me, “in case you have something else to carry.”

We are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic pessimism. It is common to hear people say that the epoch of enormous economic progress which characterized the nineteenth century is over; that the rapid improvement in the standard of living is now going to slow down—at any rate in Great Britain; that a decline in prosperity is more likely t

Like nations, individuals have to find a functional balance between order (skills) and adaptability (creativity).

As Joseph Schumpeter observed a century ago in The Theory of Economic Development, The necessity of making decisions occurs in any work. No cobbler’s apprentice can repair a shoe without making some resolutions and without deciding independently some question, however small.

fundamentally not about routines, but about novelty.

Unlike those in my generation whose first step after college was, more often than not, onto a corporate conveyor belt, the students I see today are no more likely to be enthralled by the promise of a corner office than they are by a ride to the love-in on the Magic Bus.

(i) For the first time in history, the frontier of technology is reaching the majority of the world’s population. (ii) Technology at a human scale is democratizing personal productivity as never before.

Once the system didn’t function normally, it came very close to not functioning at all.

For individuals, companies, and nations alike, it’s time to be what matters.

Trade is exalted because it represents the advancement of the interests of both parties involved—in contrast with banditry, which advances the interests only of the bandit, to the detriment of the victim.