Russ Roberts reflects on why founders struggle to bring in professional operators or hand off executive leadership as their companies scale.
Insight
Roberts: Universal basic income cannot restore the human dignity lost to automation
“The idea that it's high, but you don't have any dignity, or, you know, we give you a check to replace lost income because you've been displaced, say, by technology, that that's just as good is probably not true. Probably not just as good, even though, I mean, …”
Opinion
Roberts: Greed exists across all economic systems, not just capitalism
“I think it's bizarre how capitalism bears the burden of human nature. So people say, oh, the capitalism, that, I mean, that, the system is based on greed. And this is a Milton Friedman thing. He'd say, oh, as opposed to what system doesn't have greed, greedy p…”
Insight
Roberts: Meaningful evidence and understanding exist outside of quantifiable datasets
“And my view is, no, it's not. It often is. I'm very pro-information. I like data. I like evidence. But there is evidence that's not data. That's very hard for people in 2019 to remember. There are things we understand about the world that don't come from a sur…”
Insight
Roberts: Individual academic studies rarely change minds because empirical research is flawed
“There's very little academic research that changes people's minds, right? People don't go, oh, oh, you did a study of the minimum wage. I've always been against it, but now I guess I'm for it, or vice versa. Yeah. I've always loved the minimum wage. I guess th…”
Insight
Roberts: Founders are driven by parental respect far more than money
“Anything you create, the mark you make on the world that you want your parents to see, is way beyond, I think, the monetary part of it.”
Insight
Roberts: Emergent order allows company culture to solve problems without executives
“In a business, it's also useful because there are problems That your culture can solve. There are problems. There are things you can outsource.”