Preparing for the Marketplace of Ideas

A lot of the buzz around the idea of a nation like the United States being competitive in the 21st century, has to do with 'fostering creativity' or 'having intellectual capital'.  The implication, of course, is that the education 'system' ought to be preparing our citizens for this new future.

Here's an article from the  NY Times that gives a glimpse of what this new economy might look like - The “entrepreneur in residence” making $10,000 to $15,000/month.

6 Months, $90,000 and (Maybe) a Great Idea

“We kind of had an epiphany,” says Phil Siegel, an Austin partner. “The competition and the need for talented people is in some ways a lot harder than the competition for deals.”

While the expectations are high for his ideas, Mr. Bauer maintains that the E.I.R. programs work precisely because failure is allowed in Silicon Valley.




“In other parts of the world, there is a big stigma on your résumé if you try and fail,” he said. “That doesn’t happen here. Instead, people like the E.I.R.’s are ready to keep on taking swings.”

There is, no doubt, something to be said for all this. Except that everything I keep seeing suggests a handful of wildly successful people (at any one time) sustaining the wealth of a nation of 300 million people. It seems inefficient to me (at least at this point) to build an entire education system around the notion that every decade or so, in select industrial/economic sectors, a pair of entreprenuers (like those that founded Google or Microsoft) will bring into being the next 'big thing.'


Are the other 80-100 million (at the very least) potentially productive adults going to sit around drinking beer and watching TV?