W. Brian Arthur
External Professor, Santa Fe Institute. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
academicscientistauthorsantafe.edu/arthur ↗Wikipedia ↗
He pioneered complexity economics and the modern study of increasing returns and positive feedbacks, shaping how economists and technologists understand network effects and market lock-in. Formerly the Morrison Professor of Economics at Stanford University, he is an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
1shows
1appearances
18statements
2resolved
2supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
10said about them ↓ Everything W. Brian Arthur said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Arthur: Positive Feedbacks Cause Tech Markets to Lock In Dominance
“There weren't diminishing returns. If VHS got ahead, it would get further advantage. The whole thing was quite unstable, and if small events tilted you towards beta or VHS, my analogy was this was like bowling a ball perfectly down the middle of an infinitely …”
Arthur: Tech strategy focuses on network effects over short-term profitability
“Tech is not about making profits. It's about positioning yourself in markets and trying to build up user base or network advantages, trying to build on those positive feedbacks.”
Arthur: European and East Coast investors misunderstand tech positioning dynamics
“It certainly is that way in Europe. I'm always amazed and slightly appalled that people think of technology in Europe as something that's done by very big companies. That's pretty good technology, but they don't get that this is a game of Positioning of buildi…”
Arthur: Industries naturally trend toward domination by one or two players
“I think that in the long, long run, things do tend to get dominated by only one or two players, even in the standard businesses. And the reason that's not completely and utterly true all the time is that there are new products getting launched all the time in …”
Arthur: Strategic skill matters more for founders than technical or fundraising ability
“Skill is extremely important, but it's not tech skill. It's not even skill in raising money. Those are kind of necessary, but not sufficient. What sort of skill is really, really important is strategic skill.”
Arthur: Silicon Valley repeatedly reinvents itself despite claims of its demise
“When the game gets a little tired at times, people say, oh, the valley's over. But it doesn't. It discovers new technologies and then reinvents itself.”
Arthur: Traditional CEOs like John Sculley struggle with tech market dynamics
“The basic game in tech is not the same as the basic game in standard production, and every once in a while you see somebody taken from the standard production side of the economy, some CEO brought into a tech firm, and they don't quite get it. The classic case…”
Arthur: Industries don't adopt AI directly, but recombine its components
“Industry doesn't adopt AI. AI is a slew of technologies. It's a new Lego set. Industry is using its own technologies, and what really happens is that industries The medical industry, the healthcare industry, the aircraft industry, The financial industry , they…”
Arthur: Modern tech externalizes intelligence rather than just information
“What's gone external now is not information, what's gone external is intelligence.”
Arthur: The economy has entered a new distributive era
“So we're now in a new distributive era. What counting is not how much is produced, but who gets what.”
Arthur: Asia's digital revolution is only 2-3 years behind Silicon Valley
“What we're now seeing in Asia is that a lot of countries in Asia, including China, their digital revolution is not much more than two to three years behind what's happening in California or in the West.”
Arthur: U.S. economy will reorganize around autonomous intelligence within two decades
“I think what's going to happen in the next decade or two, the story in the US economy is simply going to be that Huge industries are going to reorganize themselves along the lines of autonomous intelligence.”
Arthur: Betamax Was Technologically Superior to VHS
“Betamax was better, and I started to wonder why VHS dominated the market.”
Arthur: Early Contracts Allowed Microsoft to Lock In 1980s PC Software
“Microsoft got ahead with certain contracts very early in the game. They locked in a lot of the personal software in the 19 eighties.”
Arthur: Paper on increasing returns took six years to get published
“Well, I wrote a paper on this in 1983, sent it to four leading economics journals. Not all at the same time, one after another. I finally got it published six years later, in 1989.”
Arthur: Market lock-in is temporary as new tech waves arrive
“The overall things that lock-ins tend to last for a certain amount of time, and then they become obsolete, and some new game comes along.”
Arthur: The digital revolution shifts to a new theme every 20 years
“About every 20 years, the digital revolution gets a new theme.”
The other half of the tape: W. Brian Arthur's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 10 times in 7 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Sonal Chokshi 10
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the a16z Podcast 10
2019 10 mentions in 7 episodes 1 per episode
- a16z Podcast | Incenting Innovation Inside, Loonshots to Moonshots
- a16z Podcast | Who's Down with CPG, DTC? (And Micro-Brands Too?)
- a16z Podcast | Automation, Jobs, & the Future of Work (and Income)
- a16z Podcast | AI, from 'Toy' Problems to Practical Application
- a16z Podcast | It's Complicated
- a16z Podcast | Not If, But How -- When Technology is Inevitable (with Kevin Kelly)
- a16z Podcast | Talking Humans and Machines with NYT’s John Markoff
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens W.'s full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a16zLEDGER | External Professor, Santa Fe Institute | 1 | 18 | 100% 2/2 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |