I am all for trying to protect the small inventor, but solo inventor who does not commercialize his/her technology does not bring nearly as much economic value (and jobs) to our society as the entrepreneur who actually takes the risk, starts the company, hires people, commercializes the technology, raises the necessary capital, and builds lasting sustainable value.
Do venture capitalists expect that creating lasting sustainable value is an option or a possibility? I thought it was about a decent rate of return. Of course the problem with even beginning to discuss this matter is the word "value." Few people would define it similarly, much less agree on a definition, and even if the general concept were settled in some imaginary homogenous parallel universe's society, few people share the same set of values or even any of the same individual values. Except for one: persistence, if that is a value.
I want to persist. You probably do too, unless you are seriously contemplating suicide while you read this commentary (don't do it). We exemplify our shared valuation of persistence in many different ways. Some of us chase tail like a one-eyed retarded dog, driven to pass down genes by yanking down jeans. Some of us religiously avoid risk of bodily harm, choosing to imagine life in a bubble of downy safety. Some of us exercise obsessively, honing our physicality to a razor's edge of fitness. Some of us eat compulsively, storing up energy as tremendous blobs of immobile survival. Some of us fight race, gender, or class wars, seeing threats to our persistence in those different from us, or defending against those we threaten through our persistence. And some of us seek to build a corporate legacy, "lasting sustainable value," or at least amass a fortune in this corporeal plane. How do you persist? Why do you?
I persist because I live and vice versa. While that may seem like a nonpoint, I can find no other explanation for my persistence value. It's an automatic response to existence as far as I can tell. Beyond that, I observe many people who attest to having "something to live for" or what I would interpret as an alternate reason for persistence (besides existence). Rubbish! Actually, strike that, I would like know what others imagine to be the reason behind their desire to persist. Or as usual, have I generalized this commentary to an atmospheric altitude incapable of sustaining discussion or interest?
Oh to be hopelessly myopic!
