Capitalism is also highly adept at taking the credit for the inventions and innovations of talented engineers and other scientists.
(Pictured: a now deceased deadbeat dad/marketer/capitalist/new age medicine enthusiast who never invented anything, but sure did enjoy wearing turtlenecks)
I can’t find it anymore, but there was an excellent Youtube vid or podcast about the components and integrations of an iPhone and how almost none of them were new inventions even though their particular use was patented by Apple, and they were in fact mostly publicly funded projects! University grants, AR&D defense contracts, infrastructure allocations, open source, etc.
GPS, touchscreen, LCDs, cell networks, HTTP, GPS, IMUs, basically every file format on the thing aside from distribution formats, much of the SDK and the foundations of the IDE.
Capitalism does not foster innovation. It fosters opportunism. The public sector takes the 1-in-a-million risk inventing something like HTTP, and carefully nurses small saplings into a sprawling fruit-bearing orchard, then the private sector comes along and harvests it, taking credit for inventing the apple. (Pun intended)
Capitalism is also highly adept at taking the credit for the inventions and innovations of talented engineers and other scientists.
Steve Wozniak: makes hardware and writes the software
Steve jobs:
I can’t find it anymore, but there was an excellent Youtube vid or podcast about the components and integrations of an iPhone and how almost none of them were new inventions even though their particular use was patented by Apple, and they were in fact mostly publicly funded projects! University grants, AR&D defense contracts, infrastructure allocations, open source, etc.
GPS, touchscreen, LCDs, cell networks, HTTP, GPS, IMUs, basically every file format on the thing aside from distribution formats, much of the SDK and the foundations of the IDE.
Capitalism does not foster innovation. It fosters opportunism. The public sector takes the 1-in-a-million risk inventing something like HTTP, and carefully nurses small saplings into a sprawling fruit-bearing orchard, then the private sector comes along and harvests it, taking credit for inventing the apple. (Pun intended)