It would be awesome if, when people make wild assertions like this one - "the number of US patents awarded annually has jumped fivefold since the early 1980s, with no corresponding increase in innovation and productivity growth" - you could ask for some supporting evidence. When I look around my house, workplace, and life in general, I see there has been a ton of innovation relative to the 1980s. I really like having access to the many new drugs, medical devices, computing power in my hand, improved cars, better airplanes, better homes, better TVs, wireless speakers, wifi generally, etc., etc. I know you are being a good host and so probably trying hard not to seem rude to the folks you interview, but "could you explain why you think there has not been much innovation since the 1980s given the highly visible appearance of electric cars, safer cars generally, personal computing, smart phones, huge advances in medical technologies, etc. that we observe? would be a great follow up question. Indeed, it's hard to think of an area of technology that has not improved since the 1980s.
Also he's confused about the "proper role of patents" - it's pretty clear the founders thought they were to incentivize inventing more useful stuff. They are limited in time, which limits the rents, but the more rents a patent generates during its life, the more incentivized people are to invent stuff. And it's not a "windfall" if it is the result of one's efforts (alone or in a team).
Love the substack, keep having interesting people, but please push them to support particularly wild and counter intuitive claims.
It would be awesome if, when people make wild assertions like this one - "the number of US patents awarded annually has jumped fivefold since the early 1980s, with no corresponding increase in innovation and productivity growth" - you could ask for some supporting evidence. When I look around my house, workplace, and life in general, I see there has been a ton of innovation relative to the 1980s. I really like having access to the many new drugs, medical devices, computing power in my hand, improved cars, better airplanes, better homes, better TVs, wireless speakers, wifi generally, etc., etc. I know you are being a good host and so probably trying hard not to seem rude to the folks you interview, but "could you explain why you think there has not been much innovation since the 1980s given the highly visible appearance of electric cars, safer cars generally, personal computing, smart phones, huge advances in medical technologies, etc. that we observe? would be a great follow up question. Indeed, it's hard to think of an area of technology that has not improved since the 1980s.
Also he's confused about the "proper role of patents" - it's pretty clear the founders thought they were to incentivize inventing more useful stuff. They are limited in time, which limits the rents, but the more rents a patent generates during its life, the more incentivized people are to invent stuff. And it's not a "windfall" if it is the result of one's efforts (alone or in a team).
Love the substack, keep having interesting people, but please push them to support particularly wild and counter intuitive claims.