Required Reading For The Carlota Perez Interview
I blogged about the interview I'm doing with Carlota Perez tomorrow. I'm super excited about this. The details are in the post behind that link.
We only have 15 minutes so as Carlota and I have talked this over, we've decided that we can't do a deep dive into her research and her theories. Instead we will spend the time trying to make sense of where we've been over the past ten years and where we are heading now.
So, if you plan to attend the interview or watch via livestream, please review these slides in advance. They are from her talk this summer at Stanford at the Triple Helix conference at a session in memory of Chris Freeman, another brilliant economist whose work inspired much of Carlota's work.
Comments (Archived):
We only have 15 minutes so as Carlota and I have talked this over, we’ve decided that we can’t do a deep dive into her research and her theories. Instead we will spend the time trying to make sense of where we’ve been over the past ten years and where we are heading now.even better!
Why don’t you, Albert and a couple of others invite her to dinner tonight and have a camera crew film it? Then you could edit it and post it online. Like Jon Favreau’s Dinner for Five.
Brad and I are meeting her for an hour prior to our interviewI will ask her if i can video it on my androidGreat idea
Even just audio would be nice
well i’ve got the soundcloud app on my new androidhttp://fredwilson.vc/post/1…
Hope they comp’d you a premium account for unlimited recording 😛
Mathew’s right… more concentration on talking points than video.
Can she go more deeply into slide 12 (about Glass-Steagall and Keynesian economics). Right now we’re missing these, how does this effect new productivity and growth?
It means we need a new set of policies
oh, agreed, but what?
Maybe we should try freedom and letting markets work.It would be fascinating to rewind back to 1991 and replay the last twenty years under this set of rules:1. everybody has to tell the truth2. everybody has to do what they promised to do3. if you violate rule #1, you’ll go to jail4. if you violate rule #2, there are no bailouts – see you in bankruptcyArguably, there would be no subprime mortgage implosion, no shattering of confidence in our financial systems, no AAA-rated toxic CDOs or MBSs, and no great recession.And the price we would have paid in return is a home ownership rate of 61% instead of 65% (and mind you, most of that 4% don’t own their homes any more, so that’s technically a wash).
@ShanaC:disqus @5cbf5020bcfc2c44cb2a44658e99d28b:disqus @fredwilson:disqus @kidmercury:disqus Personally, I think we need to get out of Keynesian debate. I was asked for advice from a college girl last year and she thanked me when she was lifted out of the closed box and looked at it as just answers on a test.The problem is often the ‘between the lines’ with all of that is government control of everything, including R&D. Oh, we want this green thing, the gov will fund and it magically happens. The solar energy, is going to happen… just a matter of cpu…2015-17 will be a different time.Many in the forward looking niches see solutions being a Manhattan Project… not needed. Since we are in the age of communication, we have the ability to call a spade a spade and push a better path, be it in economics, living, science and so on.Can’t wait for the interview 😉
2015 – that’s it? This period of nuts politics and waiting for Godot to get a job will be over?I know Dr. Perez’s point is that it will get better, but jebus, this is taking forever.
I was referring to cpu per solar…There will be other disruptions (per how we view them now) happening in the same time frame which will accelerate things more.Insofar as finding a job, I agree, it is forever. The foreverness is due to thinking of things as they were in the 90’s vs. what we have opportunity for in an improved world of tech.The question then becomes, “Can we face reality and begin removal of those rules and regs that smash opportunity and enrichment of knowledge?”Patience.
Oh yeah, something related to the energy front.We know of the ongoing strained relations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Most in the US would think the two sides cannot work together.Not long ago, Ray Kurzweil had a meeting with reps from both sides (together) to discuss ways to work together exploring future tech related to energy and fuel not dependent on today’s sources.Remember there are those that are pushing the edges to enable a better world. 😉
I wish this were reality.
sigh…
fredland. too bad fred doesn’t want to play fredsquare, otherwise we could save the world and usher in the golden age. oh well. at least we got a slideshow.
Tricorn!!
I beg to differ, my friend. We are definitely not missing out on Keynesian economics.Our President invested $787 billion into Keynesian theory in 2009 and has just asked for another $400 billion to double down.
i often wonder if keyensian economics was based on a different economic model than is relevant todayi’m no economist so i’m not capable of doing anything other than wondering
Fred, you may want to speak with her about this point to clarify. I’m reading that Carlota is actually a proponent of Keynesian policies as the way to reach a sustainable golden age. Afterall, her and Chris Freeman were two of the architects of the European Union’s economic policies http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…I see her as a Schumpeterian in her systems view, and a Keynesian in her implementation approach.
I will ask her. not sure if this will make it into our talk on stage though
Thanks for asking Fred. Good to see that it made it into the interview 🙂
A prescient comment. Capital is generally smart (and if not, is often quickly lost), so it generally flows to smart investors. And I’ve never seen a central planner who can beat a smart investor who has skin in the game.Capitalism has many flaws, but it has done more good for more people in 235 years than central planning has done in millenia.
Isn’t an economic model supposed to be a description of how an economy work?The question is how much do our current models suck.
it’s a scam. up there with organized religion as one of the all-time greats.
Hi KidIve ordered a bouncer badge for youIt a long lead time itemBut we will get you a special header color in the interim
Keynesian economics worked fine when your economic borders and political borders were the same. But the reality is that Keynesian economics have not worked, as they did in the past, since 2000 because of NAFTA and free markets. Thus the economic stimulus of Keynesian policies ends up creating economic activity but that economic activity ends up creating jobs elsewhere.One day the proponents of free markets are going to have to acknowledge that a one world economic system requires a one world government.
Thats a great insight
Nothing really insightful about it, remember Adam Smith? I know we don’t hear much about him anymore with all the Ayn Rand chatter and all of that, but his book, THE BOOK of Capitalism was called, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”WEALTH OF NATIONS!I know some folks love to comment about 235 years of capitalism in the USA, but the reality is over the course of the last 30 years we have slowly but surely ceased being a capitalist economic system and globalization involves extracting wealth, via Wall Street, via personal debt and government debt, and via demand and transferring it to foreign countries where in turn it is invested.Until some genius wakes up and says, hey that big sucking sound you hear is the wealth vacuum sucking everything from the US to China then our economic system will continue to stagnate, and the overall standard of living in this country will continue to stagnate.Until we either go with one world government or figure out a way to develop a dual economic system, one global and one domestic, then honestly government is fighting a losing battle.
whoah.
I’ve been looking forward to the second edition of Steve Keen’s Debunking Economics (out 25 Oct.). If you find yourself with 45min to invest, Prof. Keen’s talk at University College London for the launch of the book is both hilarious and scary: http://www.debtdeflation.co… Neoclassical economics was born wrong.
I should send that to people I know who are very neoclassical.
You should but they probably won’t want to hear it. Steve is a highly controversial guy, but along with Roubini, Bakeer, Krugman, Petifor, Stiglitz, and dare I say Soros, is part of an elite group to have predicted the GFC.
If there was no second stimulus (first was done under Bush/Paulson, Feb 08) the economy would be in negative territory.The second stimulus took us out of a major depression to a lackluster economy. Not great but better than 1932.
And neither is large.
whoops, replied to the wrong message in my email. Sorry about that.
We can debate the merits of the stimulus but that wasn’t my point with that comment; only noting that we are not lacking for the implementation of Keynesian theory.
I might be wrong?But it seems to me that Keynesian theory was targeted at smoothing out normal business cycles.It was never intended to deal with the type of economic train wreck generated by a globally malfeasant financial industry.Keynesian theory is a tool for small steering adjustments intended to keep your economic car in the steady-state lane. It was never intended to be used as a crane to lift your economic car out of the ditch after a drunk driving episode.Desperately gerrymandering Keynesian theory to serve as an economic disaster relief / recovery tool may or may not be useful. In my opinion that falls into the unknowable category. It is clearly a panic filed, hope of hopes, response in the absence any real proven strategy.That said, it seems to me a few regulatory rules of the road would save a whole lot of Keynesian panic manoeuvres in the ditch.
At the end of the day, Keynesian theory is that you can grow the economy by sucking money out of it and then injecting that money “into the right places.”You may be right that Keynes never foresaw President Obama pursuing his policies at this scale, but it is the incumbent economic point of view embraced by our central bankers, the Treasury Secretary and the President, and it has simply been put to work with larger dollar amounts.It’s important to also note that it isn’t a partisan point of view…Keynesian theory had plenty of life under the Bush administration too (albeit at a much smaller scale).
2 posts today, it’s like getting that rare 2 fortunes in the cookie, double-yoker.You basically write a song a day. Like this guy who wrote the iPhone 4 song (he’s great):http://www.youtube.com/user…
two yesterday and two todayi’m excited and inspired by a lot of things going on right now
it’s really an exciting time isn’t it!?! everything is fast and furious.
I started out as an entrepreneur on the web in 1998 and now am involved in cleantech – mostly solar and energy efficiency products.It’s great to see a presentation addressing the interconnection of the web and sustainable energy usage, etc. I think there will be many interesting businesses that combine the two and apply techniques that already work well for web-based businesses to green. For example, eventually there will be a “farmville” for energy consumption or renewable energy production (rooftop solar). You and all your friends can play a game that shows how much energy each person is using and get badges or other game theory rewards for reducing consumption or charging your electric car, etc. I also see potential for buying collectives that are enabled online to purchase local, organic produce in bulk, using social media to aggregate the orders. This lowers transportation costs and supports local diversified production of food, while giving consumers what they want – locally produced “clean” food. It’s like a virtual farmer’s market. It’s this type of thing that will make “being green” “cool” and help achieve mass adoption of green technologies.
We want to invest in ideas like this but are not seeing very many of them. Where do we go to find them?
We are launching in private beta in Nov a marketplace that is doing that on many verticals. Great idea to develop a whole category for Organic, Green…PS. About the slideshow. Great coherent view from where we come, where we are and where we could be in terms of economy and society. Thank you for introducing Carlota to us. I will start reading her… Can we attend only your interview tomorrow?
Fred check out this recent Hackathon event in San Francisco – list of apps created at the Hackathon at bottom of page – http://cleanwebhack.com/hac…
Wasn’t Charlie working on a side project like that?
Charlie Crystal?
Yeah but it was a while ago.
Someone I just had a coffee with was quite invested in progressing how cities get their food. While they currently are a food photo sharing service, Derek was mulling over a bunch of ideas for the near future. Might be worth a quick look, called FoodTree. (dotcom)
Couple of questions for Carlota:Is she working on another book? If she were to re-write or update parts of that 2002 book, what would she change?
Can someone bring her website from 2002 to 2011, pleeeease? http://carlotaperez.org/
Yeeooh!
I prefer substance to style.
But it must be a pain to update, being so HTML-page based.
There is no doubt about the substance, but adding the style element would be nice.
interesting that given the advances made in the human genome that she doesn’t label the Age of Biotech etc as having commenced.
BIOTECH STILL IN USE STEAM FOR PUMP OUT MINES PHASE.USE FOR INTERCONTINENTAL RAILROAD FAR OFF.
Since Drexler is basically saying we are in time of NanoBioTech, and it is a matter of pushing, we can get some things done the first half of this decade that will really blow away the second…. a matter of bringing smart science and smart money together.
NANOTECH, BIOTECH, COME WITH BIG RISK OF VERY BAD THINGS IF DO WRONG.ME, GRIMLOCK, SAY IT OKAY IF GO SLOW.
no mean to sound like a former prez, but it depends on how we define slow.my point is we need to get the greater population aware of these things pushing toward more transparency. that is what we need.otherwise, whether we go slow, moderate or fast won’t matter since the greedy can control the replicators.
ALREADY POSSIBLE FOR AMATEUR SCIENTIST IN GARAGE KILL ENTIRE PLANET WITH NEW FLU VIRUS BY ACCIDENT.THIS ONE AREA WHERE MORE AWARENESS, OPEN SOURCE MAYBE VERY BAD IDEA.
Understand your viewpoint. My position is, since an amatuer can do this in his garage, it would be better if his neighbor had a little intelligence about the matter.
I wonder if she has read James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia – http://www.amazon.com/Reven…I was a big believe in sustainable development in my twenties when I worked as an environmental planner….not so much any more. The shift is too great economically and the impact at this point would be too small in real terms.
ps. interesting she’s a Prof. in Tallin – I met the first Minister of the Environment (scary fella who tried to convince me to come back to the Mother land) as my mother was on loan from the Canadian gov’t to help set up the first Presidents office. A cold dark place for a Venezuelan but interesting in terms of where they were to where at that time to where they have gotten to economically and technologically.
are you estonian??
Half Jewish and Half Estonian — My mom was born in Tallin – i’ve been there before and after the fall – would love to go again. So many changes and culturally very interesting things going on…..
Now I understand why you’re so cool.;-)
lol well not sure about cool but i can see with very little light 🙂
If you get a chuckle from East Euro humor, check this one out (er hem, czech this one out)http://www.youtube.com/watc…Needless to say there are cultural inaccuracies. But…who cares?
“A Man. A Cause. A Finger.” omg!
Did you see — on their web page you can ‘prostate poke’ your friends.
IT COMING.IN FUTURE MOST FOOD LOCAL, MOST BUILD THINGS LOCAL. ONLY DATA COME FROM FAR AWAY.RIPPLE EFFECT HUGE, CHANGE ALMOST EVERYTHING.
Yep.
Yes, you’ll have wave plus ripple and then next cycle. Food and raw material will not be from local ground.
RAW MATERIAL, SOMETIMES.LIQUID WOOD, PAPER STRONG AS STEEL, PLASTIC FROM BIOMASS. THESE THINGS EXIST NOW, CAN BE MADE FROM ANY PLOT OF GROUND WITH WATER AND SUN.METAL, NOT SO MUCH.FOOD WILL BE LOCAL. IT WHERE EVERYONE GOING TO WORK.ALTERNATIVE IS MOST PEOPLE STARVE.
Good point, however tracking forward will come atomic/molecular self copying that will build survival/aesthetic goods. Per our back and forth earlier, this is where things can become dangerous.Simple as the well off control autonomous self thinking machines, have medicine that preempts issue, a piece of everyone’s manufacture… and will always find the convenient excuse for the fact people starve.BTW- Go Cards!
ME, GRIMLOCK, SAY 3D PRINT AND LOCAL FAB DISRUPT WHOLE THING ON OWN, NO NEED STAR TREK TECH.NO WAY TO PROJECT WHAT WORLD ON OTHER SIDE OF PRODUCT SINGULARITY LOOK LIKE.
Somewhat parallel to 3D Print is the manufacture of organs. But the folding of protiens and stacking of atoms can get us to the elimination of virus/disease.
People are starving. Grain prices are rising….
Hey Shana — just wanna say — you look good in green.
oh is the Green the special delineation? (ps. I saw Geoff today and he called you a firecracker 🙂
I’m a huge supporter of local and artisanal but be careful with the word ‘Most’.Most food in NYC coming from local…unlikely even with the great trend towards markets and rooftop gardens.A smart balance and the ability to chose…yes.And then if you want to have the discussion that I should only drink local wines…well, I’m ready 😉
There are wineries in Long Island…
Yes, and some good ones.Check out Evan Dawson’s book “Summer in the Glass” about the wine pioneers in the Finger Lakes.Balancing local, global artisanal, carbon footprints for shipping and the like are big discussion items amongst the natural wine inclined and especially those creating wine lists for eco conscious restaurants in NYC.Conscious not religious is my moto. And yes, I’m super partial to the artisanal natural wineries of parts of Europe. Heading to Franciacorta and Friuli in two days to taste.
most of the farmland here in Southern ontario is being scooped up with lovely housing developments and then of course there is the mega quarry (www.stopthemegaquarry.com) being built by a hedge fund in Boston on some of the most fertile land and fragile ecosystem to boot. on a happy note, mother earth regardless of our stupidity will eventually be fine.
NYC IS NOT MOST OF COUNTRY.
True….but something like 80+% of the population lives in cities.Supplying local food for a predominantly urban population is just not that simple.Not a big discussion point but ‘local’ as a concept, which I buy into completely, is complex and not encapsulated in a phrase.
80% OF CITIES NOT NEW YORK.ALSO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Yes, see John Robb recent writings on Resilience.
oh good one – that just got on my read later list….
No amount of “green” is gonna keep me from airlifting my paprika and poppyseeds from the old country. They are not replicable on American soil, I’m sorry to say.
ME, GRIMLOCK, MISREAD AS “JAMES LOVECRAFT”.THAT MAKE MUCH MORE INTERESTING BOOK.
…..dirty dinosaur
ELDRITCH CTHULOID HORRORS ARE DIRTY?ME GUESS THERE FETISH FOR EVERYTHING.
Oh FG I meant Lovecraft Biofuel cleansing systems…you’re made of metal afte rall…..
Are we gonna need to get you two a room?
Linda Lovelace?
all true, especially slide #8. but without sufficient political will, it is impossible. you know perez is into k-waves, you guys may also like martin armstrong, http://www.martinarmstrong.org if you are not familiar. he is also into k-waves, but closer to the kook end of things. he is also a software engineer and developed an AI that combines cycle analysis with a data set of all major historical events to forecast the future. he understands the international economic structural changes that are needed. but anyway, we need more political will. if civil disobedience off the table, we don’t have enough political will. basically we need to form our own governments and proceed accordingly. this is such an opportunity, but we’re not going to get there without being able to have honest discussions, and coordinate civil disobedience efforts. 9/11 was an inside job,kid mercury
POLITICS NEXT OLD, OBSOLETE THING INTERNET DISRUPT. EARLY STAGES HAPPENING NOW. TEAPARTY, OCCUPYWALLSTREET.WHEN DONE, DISRUPT GOVERNMENT NEXT.
@kidmercury:disqus , FG is right.
this bothers me. I don’t want to descend into anarchy ( i trust the occupy wal st people to not do that, but still)
I don’t think it will be anarchy. The way things are going, I would imagine this version of government would be more transparent and more people (within each government) would have a voice.-however-I also imagine these governments would form along ideological lines, so yes, there would be many more points-of-view circulating, but group membership could only further solidify those ideologies…I think it runs the risk of creating more noise, but less open-mindedness.
I hope transparency is what happens instead of anarchy
It shouldn’t if we have social media systems that can organize it and provide real-time feedback. Is it anarchy if they know what their community’s needs are and are responding to them? You used to need hierarchy for that, but i’m not so sure you do anymore.That’s a paradigm shift.
What do you think government would look like if that happened
Disruption to political structures doesn’t necessarily = anarchy. If you think about the things that make the social revolution on the Web great – local, community, grassroots, bottom up, – and think about how that could work empowered by technology to drive democracy in a new way….
Oh agreed. Sometimes I do think that we’re not reliving the 60s, we’re reliving the 20s and 30s. People were definitely empowered, a bit too much if that. We’re in a similar sort of technological-social shift. And those are frightening sorts of shifts.
i don’t believe people can be too empowered. insecurity breeds many of the ills of this world. when people feel empowered, they are more willing to give, share, collaborate, and those are the things if anything that are going to save the world.
Did you wiretap our weekly team meeting yestetday?Or did we wiretap yours?
SOME TRUTH OBVIOUS TO ONES WITH EYES OPEN WIDE ENOUGH.
Im working on opening them more
IT COME WITH LOTS OF PRACTICE.AND EYEDROPS.
Yes, maybe instead of adding new regulations, we could dump game rules that encourage the current misbehaviors?http://webseitz.fluxent.com…
true, but the path goes through the truth. everything else is a waste of time and a distraction. it is worth noting who the current movements like as their political leaders: tea party like michele bachmann, OWS likes obama. both are bought and paid for. show me a movement that supports real political candidates, and i’ll show you a movement that doesn’t get on tv or get celebrity attention. 9/11 was an inside job,kid mercury
SO FAR OBAMA NOT LEADER OF OWS IN ANY WAY. TEA PARTY BOUGHT AND SOLD AT SOME LEVEL.OTHER LEVEL IS ONE THAT LOVE BACHMAN FOR ENTIRE 30 SECONDS BEFORE MOVE TO NEXT DISPOSABLE SPOKESPERSON.
the unions are supporting OWS, and there is the presence of marxist, anti-capitalist ideology. so it simply supports the distraction that is the left, while the tea party supports the distraction that is the right. this type of stuff leads to more phony legislation like hte dodd-frank act, meant to regulate wall st in the wake of the 2008 crisis, but does nothign more than empower captive regulators beholden to industry incumbents by pricing startups out of the market via regulatory requirements.
We’ve been running a poll on @OccupyWallStNYC:disqus — whether people think they (a) are crazy and should go home, or (b) are a voice of reason. So far, 71% say it’s (b) it’s a voice of reason, which is pretty amazing. http://www.honestlynow.com/…
I love kookeryI might not buy itBut it inspires the mind to consider
i just bought fredsquare [dot] com. gonna build a game for fredland based off mba mondays. i plan to have it ready by xmas. consider it a gift, but if a problem, let me know.
go for iti might fund it!!!
good luck with the interview. looking forward to see the livestream 😉
Not to be outdone by @davewiner:twitter ‘s display of RSS aggregation prowess, here’s an Eqentia-powered portal dedicated to Carlota Perez, including some older videos and lots to feast about from her, in one place.http://portal.eqentia.com/c…So, found this presentation that has Speakers Notes for the above slideset. Makes studying it even easier! http://www.slideshare.net/c… If anyone is interested, this was done using Eqentia’s aggregation/curation/publishing platform, just by curating certain feeds / keywords and scooping older content via our bookmarklet.
Like your site.
Thanks.
WowThis is going to make it above the fold today
Great. Only if YouTube had a Translate button for video.This Twitter Engagement Leaderboard is very telling:http://portal.eqentia.com/c…
Nice…that was helpful
That’s some serious value-adding moderation there, William. 🙂
Thanks Tereza, but this was about me, the instigator, not moderator. Moderation stuff will happen behind the scenes, aided by the magic wands that Fred gave us 🙂
I like this dynamic. It works.
A brilliant summaric overview in just 21 slides !Yes, I know summaric is not a real word but it should be.She presents a compelling global framework for visualizing the substrate-undertow gradients at work integrating the trajectory of technological innovation and political economy.yet through exclusion leaves manysubstrate-undertow dangling chads- the deep capture of both productive industrial capacity as well as the deep capture of most democratic institutions by a dysfunctional and corrupt financial industry- spaceship earth is seriously over populated and running critical low on vital supplies with no realistic prospects of reaching a refuelling station- the model use as transitional exemplar, the emergence of a post war middle class, when viewed globally was really just a gated community of first world elites and as such may not be scalable ?- the problem of effective-demand(demand with purchasing power) in an evermore automated world requiring low worker participation counts is vexing within a traditional capitalist framework ?- any real mechanisms for synchronizing international commerce, if they exist at all, are firmly in the hand of large international corporate institutions who’s valid mandate is to their shareholders / is this the tail wagging the dog ?- building ourselves an interdependent global network economy will be tough while the divide and conquer mentality continues to block financial networking nodes at every level ? maybe that’s the hull speed limiting human participation as enforced by the biological prime directive = survival / self interest ? maybe organic community success requires an evolutionary Borg gene ? maybe it can’t be build atop a culture based platform ?ect. . . .
How about “pithy”?
At first I thought you were puling my leg. Live and learn. I had no idea !
The reason you had to make up a word is because “summary” and “overview” are already synonyms, and “summarized overview” makes the repetition clear. The language geek in me can’t help but comment 🙂
Good point, language skills are kind of a tough go for me.
Super informative!
From the perspective of an absolute economics layman (me), one of the really exciting ideas here is that there is a roadmap towards the future layed out in the cyclical pattern. True too that the policy shifts don’t look too likely to happen as soon as we need them, but still exciting to see how everything comes together (and that the ideas behind Occupy Wall Street are tied into this theory.)
Looking forward to this. The presentation was provoking.Traveling so will pick this up tomorrow as a stream.
I think the issue for me is that slide 2 in the presentation above lacks morality as a factor in the “interdisciplinarity” matrix in the diagram unless the insinuation is that this factor is contained in the overall blue background of history. Slide 3 however seems to show that this is not the case. I think without understanding the state of societies economic moral compass we we can’t get a clear picture of long term irregularities and be able to glean the future. Consider for example the connection between colonization and the industrial revolution. Consider the critical role of expanding Atlantic commerce in the successful completion of England’s industrialization process over the period 1650–1850. The contribution of Africans, can be measured in terms of the role of diasporic Africans in large-scale commodity production in the Americas – of which expanding Atlantic commerce was a function – at a time when demographic and other socioeconomic conditions in the Atlantic basin encouraged small-scale production by independent populations, largely for subsistence.To be honest consider even today whereby the concept of immoral employment conditions is driving some of todays largest economies. I think the presentation does not completely reflect the significant factors that drive growth.
There’s an old Chinese saying… “to walk a straight line, fall off one side, then the other” reminds me of the US historical record with this…install, install, install… collapse… expand, expand, expand…
First met her in 2005 through this Booz Allen Hamilton Strategy & Business interview: http://www.strategy-busines…The way she talks about how our economies and revolutions occur prompted me to buy her book, which further explained in detail the nuances of markets. Great primer…
Interesting to see Fred interview someone else.
it’s my new gigi’m eager to do more of thisi think there are so many more interesting people out there to talk to and about
A great bartender sets up great conversation.
Taking this thing live that he does so brilliantly on AVC. I like it.
Do you think Fred might be….the Oprah of Early Stage?
I called him the Charlie Rose of Tech.
Ha!!!
not sure about Oprahbut i do like interviewingit puts the attention where i want iton someone else
He was definitely very well prepared. He took that interview job very seriously, it showed.
Does not surprise me. I still need to watch it — had a last minute schedule change.I know it’s going to be a “wow” moment.BTW, the Carlota Perez portal is very cool.
Thanks Donna
“Green is not only about saving the planet it is about saving the economy and having a high (but different) quality of life” – Slide 17″ ‘Green’ must become the ‘Luxury Life’ ” – Slide 18In my experience as an engineer I’ve seen the term “green” dragged through the mud more often than I can bare. In consumer products anything labeled “green” is an excuse to mark up prices and there is little regulation as to what products are in fact beneficial to the environment or even our quality of life. In the construction industry, LEED certification is the most recognized green building seal. However, many of these buildings aren’t energy efficient at all. During environmental assessments many aren’t able to score high enough to meet EPA Energy Star labels when their utility bills are audited. These buildings rack up points in categories such as landscaping (rooftop gardens, etc) rather than energy efficient building systems. The seal does have the potential to be removed but at that point the marketing of the building is done and units were sold at marked up “green luxury” prices. Its a shame but its the reality that unless some real regulations are set up people will lose faith in green products. I think technology companies are making honest efforts, but more needs to be done and greater investments into these legitimate ventures need to be made.
The prediction of green tech driving an economic golden age rings false. In reality, the opposite seems to be the case. As the FT noted in this article last week,By creating fast-growing markets for production equipment and services, and providing cheap energy and raw materials, the shale producers are holding out the promise of an American industrial renaissance. “It’s a phenomenal opportunity,” says Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow Chemical, who is a vocal supporter of US manufacturing. “This is a gift that American entrepreneurs, the wildcatters, the oil and gas drillers, have given the country: 100 years of natural gas supply. There’s no country on the planet that wouldn’t love to get that, and then use it.”The article goes on to note the environmental challenges fracking poses — and to note that it’s obviously in the industry’s interest to resolve them — but the key point is this: cheap, plentiful energy can provide a competitive advantage for industry, and as long as “green” energy is more expensive and less reliable than alternatives, it’s hard to see how it can spur any economic golden age. Look at Spain, world leader in wind energy, with its 20%+ unemployment rate.
Of course “green” energy isn’t more expensive if you fully burden “non-green” energy with all the costs related to it – including pollution, carbon and other environmental costs. When the world catches up with the true cost of carbon based fuels, countries relying on renewables will have an advantage.
See my most recent response to RadJaz.
While I agree that at this time there are alternative energy sources which are cheap and plentiful I do still believe that “green tech” can spur an economic golden age. The problem isn’t so much the fact that the green tech is failing, its the lack of government presence that is making it difficult to make a larger impact. If there were more incentives and regulations favoring green tech there would be a larger impact. Until we fully phase in this green tech it would be in everyone’s best interest to tap into these 100 year reserves of natural gas and use them as a stepping stone to a more energy efficient and sustainable world. With govt incentive and energy efficiency in place new tech will come which will bring new jobs, redesigned consumer products and a higher quality of life.
There’s actually plenty of government presence in green tech, in the form of subsidies, tax credits, government loans, etc. (think of the government incentives to buy hybrid cars, for example, or the government loans that bailed out Tesla). But the government could tip the scales further for green energy, by subsidizing it even more, or taxing conventional sources more. Here’s the problem with that.Let’s say that, thanks to a combination of higher taxes on conventional forms of energy, and higher subsidies for green tech, it is now no longer cheaper to power an American factory with natural gas. Does that mean the factory will start running on windmills or solar panels? No. It means the factory will close, and the manufacturing will move to some other country with less expensive energy.
Dave, I agree – it’s a “tragedy of the commons” type problem which means you need global solutions. Alternatively, if consumers show that they have an appetite for it, you could have products that are favored because they are produced in green facilities or countries. Analogies are “living wage” clothing manufacturers or “dolphin safe” tuna.In reality, a simple tweak of the tax code to put renewable energy investment and development on the same footing as oil and gas would be a massive improvement. Individuals can invest in an oil well and take all the losses due to depletion and equipment depreciation on their personal tax return. By statute, these passive losses can be used to offset any income. Unfortunately, individual investors can’t use these losses from renewable energy investments. If they could, an investment in a utility scale solar plant would return 9-12% instead of 6 or less and many more investment dollars would be available to the renewables sector. So we don’t need to increase taxes or reduce subsidies for oil and gas, just treat renewables equally.
Isn’t this where the likes of Recyclebank, Simple Energy and Opower are heading? Harnessing engagement technology and our smart phones to “get to people” and have them thinking more about their everyday behaviour? As a father, I find companies that offer a form of gamification in trying to solve mankinds problems appealing. Not holding anything against the Instagram’s and Foursquare’s of this world, who have attracted a significant amount of VC money and don’t really solve anything in my humble opinion. My question is why don’t more VC’s support green focused startups that are attempting to solve “real environmental problems” such as NeighborGoods or RentCycle but would rather throw millions at the latest checkin or camera filter ‘fad’?
…or how about stress? 90% of adult primary care physician visits in the US are stress-induced. I strongly believe that, similarly, we are not applying enough smart gamification into our real-life circumstances that matter, such as making great decisions. That’s what my company is focused on. Social media and games need to be channeled toward making us *better* and *happier*, and not just in our teens and 20’s when it’s recreational. This stuff has to be sophisticated enough to filter into the daily lives of people who spend real money and make real decisions. And if they get sick, have a major ripple effect across the economy.
CURRENT LIFESTYLE FOR MOST ONLY EXIST BECAUSE WORKLOAD INCREASE 200%.FIX STRESS REQUIRE ABANDON CURRENT LIFESTYLE.
Abandon time spent on Zynga games and spend more time with family/friends, going for a walk, stay active = less stress 🙂
Research tells us that, paradoxically, too much choice creates significant stress. In large part because we want to make the ‘right’ decisions and sometimes…ok, often…we waste physical and emotional energy on decisions that are actually not even value-adding to us. But the stress takes a toll anyway. Steve Jobs counter-programmed to this beautifully. The information age has dumped a net net increase in stress on us and the best they’ve done is tried to manage it with pretty crappy algorithms designed by people who mean well but really don’t understand my decision levers. The bright spot we do have is we know that gamefulness can have a stress-reducing effect. And connection our problems to the right people can accelerate our decisions so our stress gets resolved faster. For sure our lifestyles got out of control and are in the process of rationalizing. I’m really relieved that my husband and I bought into the ‘not so big house’ concept before it was in style. Life is complicated and if you are in one of those complex stages of life you are very willing to pay a premium to make a chunk of that noise go away, so you can hear yourself think.
LATEST FAD MORE LIKELY TO HAVE BIG IPO THAN GREEN ANYTHING, THAT WHY.
FG if everyone focused on a big IPO’s in the world, how would mankind progress? Investment capital seems to chase the Wall Street quick flip, rather than helping companies that have a purpose/mission.This is what makes me admire S.Jobs even more now that he’s passed. Someone that wasn’t afraid to take a chance, in order to help push humanity forward. These are the types of entrepreneurs that really matter and the guys the John Doerr’s of the world seem to back time and time again.
FIX CAPITALISM.UNTIL THEN, WILL HAVE CAPITALISM.
That is exactly what I was trying to say in my rambling post.As usual, Grimlock says it better!
Vinod Khosla says he thinks that green will produce 10 Googles in the next 10 years – that’s how much potential there is in green/energy, etc. But, these are not 12-24 or even 60 month deals – these are 10 year development cycles.I think that’s the biggest thing holding VC’s back – it doesn’t fit their investment cycles they have promised to LP’s.It’s like “back to the future” – it’s the way I understand VC life cycles were in the 1970’s and 1980’s when VC’s backed hardware –
Vinod doesn’t need to promise anything to anyone to raise capitalwhen VCs reach a certain stage in their careers, they can change the rules
Well done. Great interview. IT needs to realize that it will change (and we are not there yet) how the world fundamentally functions.. from opening up the government spendings and budgets online in wiki kind of way, to blended international payment systems, political parties that will only function online, to community-group-progress platforms that will happen in solely (and more easily) online arena.. and what is even more crazy is that this will all be happening with our avatars, sometimes many different ones, used per purpose. When IT gets there, world will be a different place.
I think our great failure is touched upon in slide #21 where she states: “Academic Work Must Engage In The Betterment of Society” not much chance with the social sciences being totally positive rather than normative.Even this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics went to two positivist professors.We have lost academics as a study of what should be, what is ideal or simply, to even explore normative statements that affirm how things should be or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong. But we are capable of gathering data and creating statistics, but we have no over riding ideal to which to apply this information to.We need great thinkers…..but our universities churn out sports programs and business schools….because they no longer are institutions of higher learning but rather business enterprises.
Honestly, it was a fascinating interview. I couldn’t stop tweeting soundbites. Here’s a short Storify of tweet bites from me and others. http://storify.com/wmougaya…
I really enjoyed the interview as well. I just wish there was a way to avoid relying on policy to get some of the items on this agenda accomplished. Maybe a grass roots movement towards local production, renewable energy, etc. will speed the process up.In California the investor owned utilities are starting a campaign to get permission from the CPUC to raise their rates more than 5% a year to defray increasing costs for – wait for it – their underfunded employee pensions!This is spuring demand from forward thinking homeowners who expect to remain in their current homes for the next 10+ years to get “off the grid” – offset so much of their power with solar that the utilities planned increases won’t substantially affect their monthly electricity bill.This activity requires no policy change, no belief in global warming – it’s all dollars and cents and planning for a more self-sufficient future where you are somewhat more insulated from the whims of state government policy.
You raise a good point. Everybody seems to point the finger at governments as if they are the ones to solves today’s ailments. What Carlota was implying is that we can’t rely on governments to solve things because they are clueless. They are the dinosaurs she was referring to. Governments want all the credit in times of prosperity, and they deflect all the blame during bad times.
we don’t need to wait for government to start to changei think of things like the home schooling movement and the impact they’ve had
thanks for that storify william
great post.
New Money?So if the recent phase involves freeing up of financial markets/mobility of capital and the internet/information revolution, maybe the maturity phase is a financial system that is finally rid of last century methods of moving money. No more cash and traditional banks? More control of funds, less paper trail (more digital signatures of where money has been?)?Or even a destruction of the current fiat currency system when the battle between Chinese and US currencies comes to a head? Will it be a kid in a garage to come up with something more tangible than both bitcoins and fiat currencies that ties in better measures of value, trust and work?Internet banking still seems hamstrung by old processes. Banks still issue cheque books to businesses as standard. Security online is still a threshold that people need to overcome, but we may be at or just over a tipping point with the amount of information people give away to online forms.Does anyone know of, or is working on, a start-up in this area?
I hope Carlota can convince her publisher to convert her book to being Kindle ready. I try to carry around all the important books I want to own on this device.
Sign me up for that request! I bought the print edition but I would love to have it along all my other e-books, for ease of reference and access.Reviewing the slides is my ‘homework’ for tonight!
She has begged her publisher to do this many times. Her publisher “doesn’t like the business terms for kindle”Yet another example of a backward thinking rights holder screwing over an artist and her fansUggggggh
Maybe Kindle and it’s note-taking should be more open?(Can I install a nook app on a KindleFire?)
Took the book out from our business school library rather than buy a print version – would happily buy the ebook if it was available! Tell that to the rights holders!
It also depends who holds copyright, she the author or the publisher? Electronic publishing rights may be not always covered in the contract. Fred- point Carlota to a New York lawyer to look at her publisher’s contract. I’m willing to bet there is a way out of that quagmire. Her last book was written in 2002! A lot has changed since then.
Yeah I hate to say this but most guys in that circumstance would’ve flipped their publisher the bird. They are preventing her livelihood and she’s playing by their rules.Maybe that’s why she’s an academic (a brilliant one) and not an entrepreneur.Her thoughts are world-changing and they are holding her back. That’s unacceptable.
fyi it is available as a google ebook: http://books.google.com/boo…
Looks like that’s just a version you can preview; when I tried to purchase it says it’s not available as an ebook…bummer
I agree. She’s fucking brilliant and needs help.