Innovation Under Austerity: Discussion

Disintermediation, as you’ve discussed in class and in your talk, is disrupting a variety of industries. As 3rd party intermediaries are removed in a variety of contexts it’s become clear many have not served much of a purpose and have stifled innovation in a variety of ways. Unfortunately intermediaries are still pervasive - you mentioned the healthcare and financial industry as being recent examples of successful intermediaries.

In the past few years there’s been discussion of the financial services industry taking the country’s best and brightest and channeling their talents into an industry that does not produce a societal benefit. It seems the same might be said for Silicon Valley’s top engineers when they go work for Facebook or an Apple. You mentioned that the internet itself was the product of disintermediated innovation. Those who did the innovating must have worked for intermediaries themselves, even if that is not who they were “innovating” for.

My question is how do you prevent intermediaries, no matter what industry they’ll form in, from attracting the top talent that otherwise could be innovating absent a formal structure and entrenching their own power? Facebook’s motto, “the hacker way” seems to have co-opted the very mentality that would produce innovation under austerity. Is this something you think is a problem?

-- JohnStewart - 06 Nov 2012