Our innovation economy is broken. But thereesquo;s good news: The ideas that will solve our problems are hiding in plain sight.
While big companies in the American economy have never been more successful, entrepreneurial activity is near a 30-year low. More businesses are dying than starting every day. Investors continue to dump billions of dollars into photo-sharing apps and food-delivery services, solving problems for only a wealthy sliver of the worldtsquo;s population, while challenges in health, food security, and education grow more serious.
In The Innovation Blind Spot, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ross Baird argues that the innovations that truly matter donrsquo;t see the light of daypdash;for reasons entirely of our own making. A handful of people in a handful of cities are deciding, behind closed doors, which entrepreneurs get a shot to succeed. And most investors are what Baird calls
dquo;two-pocket thinkerspdquo;gdash;artificially separating their charitable work from their day job of making a profit.
The resulting system creates rising income inequality, stifled entrepreneurial ambition, social distrust, and political uncertainty. Our innovation problem makes all our other problems harder to solve. In this book, Baird demonstrates how and where to find better ideas by lifting up people, places, and industries that are often overlooked. What
squo;s more, Baird ultimately outlines how to create long-term success through idquo;one-pocket thinkingcdquo;
dash;eliminating the blind spot that separates
