At the same time that innovation is growing in importance capital is decreasing in importance. It makes sense: there has been an unprecedented globalization of wealth creation and access to capital sources. Aggregation of wealth in the hands of people who get paid for getting the cash to move quickly (otherwise known as increasing the velocity of capital) means that the allowance for risk in capital markets has dramatically risen (so much so that the Fed is starting to look at the lending practices of banks in LBOs since the terms of the deals are so favorable to the borrower). It’s simply an economic law of averages: more money chasing a relatively stable number of deals means that the bets have to be bigger and the number of potential deals increased by looking for other avenues for deploying capital (the present LBO craze). So at the same time that creativity is becoming ever more important to wealth generation, capital is becoming decreasingly expensive (as measured by the total cost of acquisition and maintenance of that capital). Further, the means of production (those things which enable the commercialization of creativity such as software, hardware, financial services and networks) are easily accessible by everyone. It is cheaper in real dollars (not opportunity cost of time spent) to set up a website than it is to get the average fast food dinner for two.

Comments