Topic: Learning From the Past

There is a tendency to believe that there is only one model for innovation that ‘works’: the venture capital-funded ‘start-up’ model. There is no doubt that this model has had success over the past few decades, but at its heart it is often a statistical game of chance, with an associated funding and feedback model that is financially rigorous but that undervalues real technological value or breakthroughs. In this lecture I will review this model in the context of other innovation models that exist or have existed and compare and contrast their relative merits.