political economy

Governments sporadically got things spectacularly wrong. In 1865, the rail and horse-drawn carriage lobbies in the U.K. drummed up enough outrage to pass the Locomotive Act, whose most notable feature was an absurd requirement that a man walk in front of any self-propelled vehicle waving a red flag and blowing a horn. It stunted the U.K. automobile... See more

This is why successful companies still pursuing breakthroughs are always led by live players, often the founders.

Only Mark Zuckerberg could have changed Facebook's name and decided it was now a virtual reality hardware company.