Reimagining Capitalism

We need to move from competitive ideation, trying to push our individual ideas, to collective ideation, collaborative ideation. It isn’t about having the number one best idea, but having ideas that come from, and work for, more people.

A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.

This system, which allows private-equity firms to succeed when their companies, customers, and employees fail, is broken.

successful companies design their products to automate, eliminate, or simplify as many steps as possible. They reduce the number of fields on each form. They pare down the number of clicks required to create an account. They deliver their products with easy-to-understand directions or ask their customers to make fewer choices.

While we often think of terms such as “big data” and “algorithms” as being benign, neutral, or objective, they are anything but. The people who make these decisions hold all types of values, many of which openly promote racism, sexism, and false notions of meritocracy, which is well documented in studies of Silicon Valley and other tech corridors.

Populist movements — on both the right and left — argue that liberalism has failed to deliver on its lofty ideals. Instead of liberty, equality, and prosperity, it has brought about widening inequality, the breakdown of traditional communities, and unchecked power for an elite class that is increasingly detached from ordinary people.

America learned the hard way what happens when corporations operate in the dark. Before the Great Depression, the whole U.S. economy functioned sort of like the crypto market in 2021. Companies could raise however much money they wanted from whomever they wanted. They could claim almost anything about their finances or business model. Investors oft