The Almighty Dollar
Greed is the single most factor that kills innovation. I'm not saying that because I'm jaded, or because I'm trying to be provocative. I'm saying it because for so many people who have the skills and tools to truly innovate, they equate invention with money. Rather than using the internet - which is an incredible communication and social networking device - to gain cooperation and effort to increase the viability of their ideas, too many people see the internet as something else entirely, something that it normally is not.The Boom Problem
The problem isn't so much the dotcom bust, but the dotcom boom. People want to become overnight millionaires for ideas that are less than revolutionary. This means that rather than vetting their ideas out in the thousand-and-one ways that you can do so, they keep their ideas to themselves. I think that because so many people made so much money - and so much of that was publicized, people of this generation are more likely to keep their projects private for longer than necessary.Intellectual Property Laws
Intellectual Property Laws like those surrounding patents, copyrights, and trademarks have been around since before the United States was a country. On the surface they sound logical. It's a way of ensuring that the original developers (be they artists, engineers, scientists, or simply idea-havers) of innovation can profit from their work. Unfortunately for the world at large, the laws do little or nothing for those who would need protecting, and the laws server more to stifle innovation than to encourage it. Let me provide a few examples:Not too many years ago, I had a pretty nice cell phone. For ease of navigation, it provided a multi-function rotating wheel. You could use it to thumb through contacts, to adjust volume, to navigate through screens, etc. The company that produced the phone obtained a patent for this kind of interface. Now anybody wishing to use something similar would need to obtain rights to do so. Sure, this was innovation. Sure, the original developer deserves to profit from his idea. The reality, however, is that rather than build on this innovation to produce even better interfaces, the industry at large decided to go in different directions. In another 15 years, I would bet that we're going to see another boom in portable devices - not because of any great innovation that is happening then, but because many of the patents for simple foundational interface functionality will be expiring. For now, we see different interfaces from different manufacturers, with very few of them being as convenient as the jog dial. Consumers lose because while there very well could be a consensus interface to their portable devices - a collective best-practice - there is not. So every time we buy a new cell phone, we end up having to learn how to interact with it. And now, instead of focusing efforts for expanding the base functionality of devices, we have companies focusing efforts on "keeping up with the Jones'". TV on our cell phones isn't something everybody wants or needs, but since that's the hot feature in the industry, hundreds of people who could be focusing on more interesting problems are all independently building ways for us to do the same useless thing.
The same situation exists in the medical industry. Rather than scientists collaborating and developing new and innovative things, they independently re-build the same foundational structures over and over again. If two companies have an idea for fighting cancer - they don't join forces, share research, and find new solutions to important problems. They instead force employees to sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements and work fervently to prevent their important scientists from defecting to competitors. The company that gets their first ends up with a huge monetary gain. But in the end, that monetary gain is a short term gain, while the lack of cooperative research forces the rest of the world to suffer real long term consequences.
Look back at the invention of Cotton Gin. Whether you believe it was Eli Whitney, Catherine Littlefield Greene, or Sean Paul who invented it, the fact remains that Eli Whitney was granted the patent. He couldn't meet demand for his device, and the devices were inevitably pirated. He tried to pursue his competitors and copycats legally, and the lawsuits bankrupted him, and put his company out of business.
So much for protecting the little guy. So much for encouraging innovation. So much for making the world a better place.
The Solution
As always, I have a solution. It's not "get rid of intellectual property laws". It's not "get rid of software/algorithm patents". And it's not "shorten the time frame associated with intellectual property rights". These kind of solutions are simply not feasible at this time or in the forseeable future. Certainly if they were, the debate surrounding them would be quite interesting. But since they are not...The solution is to buck the system.
Innovators have long term value intrinsically. We don't need licensing rights. We don't need contracts. We don't need legal protection. We have all that and more. Why? Because without people who innovate, the world is stagnant. People who innovate understand more about the reasoning behind their innovation than anybody else. People who innovate are important to current and future profits - without their ideas now, where would we be? If I invent something, and demand a certain amount of money from my would-be licensees, it's up to them to decide whether I am worth that amount of money to keep around. If I'm not, I seriously doubt that an intellectual property attorney could make my case - not in any time frame that would net positive results for me anyways.
Our value should be based on what is in our minds, and what our minds are capable of doing in the future. Not on what we have done in the past. A person should get rich because they came up with the business model that makes online grocery shopping feasible - not because they registered homegrocer.com.
Venture Capitalists
I've read and heard stories about how venture capitalists steal ideas, why it's such a bad thing, and why one needs to be exceptionally careful when seeking funding for a project. It's what they should do. If you have an idea, and no money to implement it, and anybody could do it - then if that idea has value somebody will do it. It could be you - if you develop the idea to the point where you have an intrinsic advantage and an intrinsic value to the development of that idea. But if there is nothing special about you that puts you in a position to implement that idea, you may as well hand it off to somebody else.If you are the kind of person who can come up with a lot of these ideas, the VC's will then see your value and they will partner with you to incubate and develop some of your ideas. At that point, you have shown that you bring something to the table they can't get elsewhere.
If your idea is something that other people are better suited to bring to market, should not those other people do so? Wouldn't their expertise be critical to that idea's eventual success?
Really, though, if money is your only barrier, then you have a very easy road in front of you. Don't seek funding until you truly need it. At that point, your value will be undeniable and your idea will not get stolen.
Conclusion
- Be unique
- Leverage common interest
- Change the world
Follow these guidelines, and you'll get your money and your recognition. But really, none of that will matter so much to you anymore - because you've already changed the world.
Discuss Competition for Innovation
