, Columnist
Little Improvements Crowd Out World-Changing Innovation
Modest but constant refinements leave little room for revolutionary inventions.
It came to me in a flash.
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The notion that we’re getting worse at generating big, world-changing ideas has been gaining currency. As the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip wrote earlier this month:
Is this because all the “low-hanging fruit,” a phrase that I think my Bloomberg View colleague Tyler Cowen should get most of the credit (or blame) for popularizing, has been plucked already? Is it because government regulators are standing in the way of innovation? Is it because investors are pushing too hard for immediate gratification?