Categories
free trade & free markets

Tweet, Tweet, Zoom

Recently, Peter Thiel, a very interesting mover and shaker in today’s most vibrant markets, criticized the upshot of today’s technology: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” That’s a slam at Twitter, a free service that somehow makes enough to stay afloat.

The lack of flying cars, though: Is that a problem?

Joshua Gans thinks we should ask ourselves whether we really want flying cars. You know, in our heart of hearts. After all, kids want to be Superman.

Markets only deliver the possible.

And much of what they deliver we hadn’t thought of before: iPods/​iPhones/​iPads weren’t really dreamed about much, outside of Dick Tracy/​Star Trek fandom.

As for Twitter, Gans says it’s “a new communications protocol and more than just social media,” which makes it “more than merely trivial.” I’m sure he’s right. But I still keep kicking myself: whose time is worth so little that it’s worth complaining about free stuff?

Thiel’s focus is on technology, not markets — but it is the market that brings us stuff. Free markets are not “free” as in no price, they are free as in being unencumbered by busybody regulators, prohibitionists, and thieves. Such markets strike me as amazingly effective at providing a wide range of goods to the rich and the poor and everyone in-​between. Hobbled, subsidized markets, on the other hand, exhibit Tweetable perversities — and usually serve the rich better than the poor.

Still, a lot of folks complain about what markets have to offer. I don’t get that, either. Hey, I reject most offers. So can they.

I say we stick to complaining about offers we can’t refuse.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling free trade & free markets individual achievement

Entrée “Preneurial”

Today is Memorial Day, but the larger season is one of graduations, from college and high school and even lower grades. It’s fitting, then, to take a step back and consider the philanthropy of Peter Thiel, who is working on a different course.

Thiel, PayPal co-​founder and early Facebook investor, made headlines last year as he began his anti-​scholarship program, “20 Under 20.” He is giving $100,000 to 20 young people under 21, but on one condition — that they not go to college.

Instead, his bequests amount to angel seed money for young go-​getters to do something original, entrepreneurial.

Now, Thiel has announced his first 20 recipients. An AP story by Marcus Wohlsen leads with the circumstances of one recipient, Nick Cammarata, a young genius programmer. Cammarata wasn’t one of those grade A students. Instead of studying hard, he did what he liked, including reading books on subjects he was interested in. And programming, which got him attention outside his school and town.

Like other recipients of the Thiel hundred grand grant, he plans to parlay the money into a hopeful tech project.

The article dutifully quotes skeptics of Thiel’s program, and mentions the oft-​quoted statistic that workers with college degrees have been laid off at a lower rate than non-​degreed workers.

But this misses the main point of Thiel’s intent. He’s not interested in making “workers.” He’s interested in creating entrepreneurs. The people who hire workers.

A very different goal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.