Free Republic

Thank you for the kind introduction. I want to start by thanking President Macron for hosting the event and of course, for the lovely dinner last night. During the dinner, President Macron looked at me and asked if I would like to speak, and I said, "Mr. President, I'm here for the good company and free wine, but I have to earn my keep today." I, of course, want to thank Prime Minister Modi for being here and for co-hosting the summit, and all of you for participating. I'm not here this morning to talk about AI safety, which was...

A new paper in the QJE [the Quarterly Journal of Economics], The Global Race for Talent: Brain Drain, Knowledge Transfer, and Growth, by Marta Prato uses extensive data on inventors and their migration to make the following points. (i) gross migration is asymmetric, with brain drain (net emigration) from the EU to the United States; (ii) migrants increase their patenting by 33% a year after migration; (iii) migrants continue working with inventors at origin after moving, although less frequently; (iv) migrants’ productivity gains spill over to their collaborators at origin, who increase patenting by 16% a year when a co-inventor...

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have made a penchant for chastising “hate speech” and “misinformation” on the campaign trail this election season. While those words might not seem like much to those less familiar with how our constitutional form of government, and specifically the First Amendment, is supposed to work, they are offensive to those of us who understand a thing or two about the Constitution – particularly, the notable omission of a so-called “hate speech” clause. In truth, liberals like Kamala and Walz are merely playing with words (and not particularly well) doing their best to not tell people...

Over the weekend, I took my daughter and her best friend on a day trip from Northern Virginia to Hico, West Virginia. In a matter of 120 minutes, you pass from one of the statistically wealthiest areas in the United States to some of the most destitute roadside neighborhoods you’ll see in the region. The friend asked why it's like this in West Virginia, and all I could think to say in response was, “All your friends back in Northern Virginia, what do their parents do for work?” It didn’t take her long. She responded, “Oh like mostly the Pentagon,...

Adolph Rickenbacker's powerful instrument put intense creative energy in the hands of ordinary people.

Gilder Guideposts: Cacophonous are the voices decrying the implosion of “the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem,” as the Harvard Business Review puts it. Do not hope, the voices warn, to see in our future anything like the miraculous progress of the last two centuries, or even the last 50 years. It’s done. Tighten your belts. Supporting the doomsters are dozens of academic studies arguing that “big research,” whether at our great corporations or our universities, yields increasingly diminishing returns. Making headlines recently was a Nature study concluding, “We find that papers and patents are increasingly less likely to break with the past...

For venture capitalists and startup entrepreneurs, 2023 was a year dedicated to the destructive phase of Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction. Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in the second-largest bank failure in American history, 400,000 tech jobs were eliminated in what Wired dubbed “The Great Tech Layoffs,” and dozens of high-potential startups transformed from unicorns into “zombies.” Destruction is a necessary ingredient to creativity. Not all ideas are good, and not all firms can make it. Economic dynamism is predicated not just on the rapid generation and growth of winning startups, but also on the implosion of failed companies, which...

Originally established as Olds Motor Vehicle Company by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, Oldsmobile was, for most of its existence, GM's entry-level premium brand. Purchased by General Motors in 1908, Oldsmobile slotted above Chevrolet and Pontiac and below Buick and Cadillac. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The division was noted for several innovative technologies and designs. It was the first automaker to offer a fully automatic transmission, it produced the fastest cars of the early 1950s thanks to the Rocket V8 engine and built the world's first turbocharged production car in the 1960s. Oldsmobile became one of America's best-selling brands in the 1970s...

This is no surprise to me, and relates to the piece I started the day with: the rate at which scientists produce groundbreaking research has slowed dramatically in recent years. This phenomenon has been quietly discussed among both scientists and social science researchers in recent years, and there has been a great deal of speculation about the reasons for the decline. To me, the reasons are pretty obvious. First, the data. Carlson School of Management Associate Professor Russell Funk, doctoral student Michael Park and Professor Erin Leahey of the University of Arizona collaborated in a project to analyze the rate...

While the Internet and the World Wide Web have certainly impacted the lives of many millions of people it is certainly not the greatest invention of the past millennium, in fact it might not even make the the top ten.

This medium releases 99.99 percent pure hydrogen, which could power electrical grids, hydrogen fuel cells, cars, or hydrogen-injected diesel trucks. Former computer-chip manufacturing engineer Paul Smith founded Plasma Kinetics in 2008. The Arizona-​based startup has developed “solid-state” hydrogen storage, essentially transferring the gas onto a proprietary film wound in many layers inside a canister. He says the tech could challenge batteries in both efficiency and environmental friendliness. When unspooled and run past a laser—the film moves from one reel to another, like movie film through a projector—the solid-state storage medium releases 99.99 percent pure hydrogen, which could power electrical grids,...

President Biden on Thursday acknowledged the urgent need to lower costs for Americans, calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan innovation bill as one way to do so. Biden, speaking at North Carolina A&T University, noted the Labor Department’s inflation report that came out earlier this week showed prices continued to rise over the last month as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spiked the cost of oil and other goods.

When reading the Ecclesiastical History of Hermias Sozomen—a work written immediately before the Council of Chalcedon when the universal Church was roiled by a variety of heresies—one picks up the venerable author’s animus for innovation. Indeed, Book IV, Chapter 27 begins with the following passage: When the spirit of innovation becomes regarded with popular favor, it is scarcely possible to arrest its progress. Inflated as it always is with arrogance, it contemns the institutions of the Fathers, and enacts laws of its own. It even despises the theological doctrines of antiquity, and seeks out zealously a new form of religion...

It used to be that 90% of the time, you accessed stuff only on your computer’s local network. Then in 1993 at the University of Illinois, Marc Andreessen developed Mosaic, the first internet browser, which allowed users to wander around the World Wide Web 90% of the time. He moved to Silicon Valley and founded Netscape. Mr. Andreessen is now a general partner at a top-decile venture-capital firm, better than 90% of its peers. Andreessen Horowitz recently raised $9 billion in new funds.

We know that most of that wealth was made after the year 1800. And we know that most of it is currently owned by people we might call Westerners: Europeans, North Americans, Australasians. 19 percent of the world's population today, Westerners own two-thirds of its wealth. Economic historians call this "The Great Divergence." And this slide here is the best simplification of the Great Divergence story I can offer you. It's basically two ratios of per capita GDP, per capita gross domestic product, so average income. One, the red line, is the ratio of British to Indian per capita income....

As a gesture of goodwill, President Biden recently announced that the U.S. will be shipping 20 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to other countries. This altruistic policy not only puts American values on full display but is also a testament to the strength of American pharmaceutical innovation. It is no coincidence that the U.S. has robust intellectual property (IP) protections and was the first out of the gate to have a COVID-19 vaccine ready. Unfortunately, these strong IP safeguards may be on the chopping block. The Biden administration’s recent decision to support an IP protections waiver for COVID-19 drugs is a...

Anger against big tech reached a tipping point during the 2020 Election, as conservative ideas were censored and stories critical of Democrats suppressed. With the ongoing purge of social media accounts, corporations are enforcing a free speech restriction that terrifies not only conservatives but free speech advocates across the political spectrum. The question now is how do we translate anger into tangible actions that will bring about change? To fight big tech over the long-term, we need a comprehensive strategy that marshals the resources of investors and entrepreneurs, donors, elected officials and policy experts. Business leaders can foster an entrepreneurial...

Capitalism, and the American pharmaceutical industry that thrives under it, saves lives. With the possible exception of “Big Oil,” there is no industry more demonized in America than the pharmaceutical industry. In some cases, the disdain for “Big Pharma” is both understandable and justified—as with the “commercial triumph” but “public health tragedy” surrounding the sale and regulation of OxyContin. But we are now on the precipice of one of those very pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer Inc., being granted permission by the FDA to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, in the hopes of eradicating a disease that has killed almost 1.3 million worldwide...

Once upon a time, Japan was widely expected to eclipse the United States as the technological leader of the world. In 1988, the New York Times reporter David Sanger described a group of U.S. computer science experts, meeting to discuss Japan’s technological progress. When the group assessed the new generation of computers coming out of Japan, Sanger wrote, “any illusions that America had maintained its wide lead evaporated.” Replace “computers” with “artificial intelligence,” and “Japan” with “China,” and the article could have been written today. In AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, which unsurprisingly became an...

New Brunswick is the first Canadian Province to adopt the therapeutic approach of the Marseille University Hospital and Professor Didier Raoult. Dr Gabriel Girouard, microbiologist and infectiologist at the Dr-Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital in Moncton, was interviewed by Journalist Sophie Durocher. The interview in French covers all the key elements of the New Brunswick approach, which focuses on early treatment of the disease, as recommended by Professor Raoult and his team. An interesting feature of the New-Brunswick approach is that patients will be monitored via tele-medicine. So only cases that require it will be hospitalized. Dr Girouard explains how several committees,...