We are increasingly facing what planners call “wicked problems”—problems that are “difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize.”

As I came to realize, our business was really “changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.”

open source programs “evolve” as much as they are designed. And as I wrote in my 1998 paper, “Hardware, Software, and Infoware,” “Evolution breeds not a single winner, but diversity.”

Open source software projects like Linux and open systems like the Internet and the World Wide Web work not because there’s a central board of approval giving permission for each new addition but because the original designers of the system laid down clear rules for cooperation and interoperability. The coordination is all in the design of the syst

“I used to create programs that did exactly what I told them to do, which forced me to think of every possible contingency and make a rule for every contingency. Now I build programs, feed them data, and teach them how to do what I want.”

And that gets me to the third characteristic of true unicorns: They create value. Not just financial value, but real-world value for society.

We were all enthusiasts. Some of us were also entrepreneurs.

the right answer is to develop a social safety net and regulatory frameworks as flexible and responsive as the on-demand business model itself.

What is the future of business when technology-enabled networks and marketplaces let people choose when and how much they want to work?