A stunning display of insight and erudition and an important contribution to a long-standing debate about the part...
A venture capitalist and theoretician provides a radical reconsideration of the roles of asset bubbles and government investment in technological innovation.
According to the once-dominant perspective of neoclassical economics, efficiently functioning markets and the rational actors who run them justify a minimum of government intervention in the form of either regulation or investment. But in this second edition of his economics book, Janeway (Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, 2012) contends that the most recent market crisis and the existence of bursting financial bubbles in general repudiate that sanguine vision of triumphant human reason. In fact, state action is necessary not only to preserve continuity and confidence during disruptive periods, but also to fund technological innovation. The author conjures a Keynesian model to capture this more nuanced, messier version of progress, one in which the state, the market, and the financial sector simultaneously compete and collaborate—the “Three-Player Game.” Financial bubbles turn out to be necessary: When the timing of the dance between the three players flounders (“coordination failures”), bubbles occur and create the incentive to speculatively invest in risky assets while largely remaining indifferent to their real or future value. Put simply, bubbles generate the conditions for progress, or the “environment in which technological revolutions can reach commercially and economically significant scale.” The propensity to “tolerate unavoidable waste,” for example, to fund research without any expectation that it will generate returns, is the heart of capitalism, not the rational optimization of outcomes, and for this the government is indispensable. But Janeway deftly shows that the digital revolution’s astonishing success, inconceivable without state sponsorship, has paradoxically contributed to the delegitimizing of government by accelerating the expansion of economic inequality and the social stress that ensues. The worrisome consequence could be that a diminished version of the Three-Player Game is unable to steward the next revolution: the emergence of a green economy. This second edition includes a valuable updated reflection on the ramifications of Donald Trump’s presidency and the angry march of populism. The author’s incisive analysis draws deeply from his dual identity as a venture capitalist with over 40 years of practical experience and a theoretician with a Ph.D. in economics from Cambridge University. As a result, he moves agilely from the microscopic assessment of case studies to the rigorous discussion of academic literature. For those in search of advice on how to “construct defenses against the vagaries of living in this uncertain economic world,” he furnishes creative, sensible lessons. But he also supplies a provocative critique not only of neoclassical economic theory, but also of the behavioral models that presume reliable rationality as a signature characteristic of human decision-making. Janeway employs “two different styles of rhetoric,” one more forbiddingly technical and the other more conversationally informal, the result of the material being sourced from different kinds of presentations he’s given. In either case, unfortunately, the writing can be needlessly turgid and unwieldy. For example, “existential negative externality” is the kind of phrase that repudiates itself once said out loud.
A stunning display of insight and erudition and an important contribution to a long-standing debate about the part government plays in technological progress.Pub Date: June 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-108-47127-5
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.
Two distinguished technology executives share the methodology behind what made Google a global business leader.
Former Google CEO Schmidt (co-author: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, 2013) and former senior vice president of products Rosenberg share accumulated wisdom and business acumen from their early careers in technology, then later as management at the Internet search giant. Though little is particularly revelatory or unexpected, the companywide processes that have made Google a household name remain timely and relevant within today’s digitized culture. After several months at Google, the authors found it necessary to retool their management strategies by emphasizing employee culture, codifying company values, and rethinking the way staff is internally positioned in order to best compliment their efforts and potential. Their text places “Googlers” front and center as they adopted the business systems first implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stressed the importance of company-wide open communication. Schmidt and Rosenberg discuss the value of technological insights, Google’s effective “growth mindset” hiring practices, staff meeting maximization, email tips, and the company’s effective solutions to branding competition and product development complications. They also offer a condensed, two-page strategy checklist that serves as an apt blueprint for managers. At times, statements leak into self-congratulatory territory, as when Schmidt and Rosenberg insinuate that a majority of business plans are flawed and that the Google model is superior. Analogies focused on corporate retention and methods of maximizing Google’s historically impressive culture of “smart creatives” reflect the firm’s legacy of spinning intellect and creativity into Internet gold. The authors also demarcate legendary application missteps like “Wave” and “Buzz” while applauding the independent thinkers responsible for catapulting the company into the upper echelons of technological innovation.
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1455582341
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.
Noted number cruncher Sperling delivers an economist’s rejoinder to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Former director of the National Economic Council in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the author has long taken a view of the dismal science that takes economic justice fully into account. Alongside all the metrics and estimates and reckonings of GDP, inflation, and the supply curve, he holds the great goal of economic policy to be the advancement of human dignity, a concept intangible enough to chase the econometricians away. Growth, the sacred mantra of most economic policy, “should never be considered an appropriate ultimate end goal” for it, he counsels. Though 4% is the magic number for annual growth to be considered healthy, it is healthy only if everyone is getting the benefits and not just the ultrawealthy who are making away with the spoils today. Defining dignity, admits Sperling, can be a kind of “I know it when I see it” problem, but it does not exist where people are a paycheck away from homelessness; the fact, however, that people widely share a view of indignity suggests the “intuitive universality” of its opposite. That said, the author identifies three qualifications, one of them the “ability to meaningfully participate in the economy with respect, not domination and humiliation.” Though these latter terms are also essentially unquantifiable, Sperling holds that this respect—lack of abuse, in another phrasing—can be obtained through a tight labor market and monetary and fiscal policy that pushes for full employment. In other words, where management needs to come looking for workers, workers are likely to be better treated than when the opposite holds. In still other words, writes the author, dignity is in part a function of “ ‘take this job and shove it’ power,” which is a power worth fighting for.
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7987-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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