Niall Ferguson: The Ascent of Money

To work in a financial sector is not the most popular place to be these days. I guess that politicians and bankers are the most to be blamed about the financial crisis at hand. Well, this is nothing new. Throughout the history, people working in "real economy", doing "real work", have seen finance and financiers somehow less valuable to society. However, it can be said, that the development of finance has been the most important reason for the increase of human wealth and the improvement of living conditions all over the world.

Professor Niall Ferguson

Finance is the most important innovation in mankind's history

In order to understand the role of finance in the development of world's well-being, I highly recommend to read Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money - A Financial History of The World. Professor Ferguson gives a historical insight into monetary innovations and explains practically why the role of money is - and has always been - crucial in different societies. Ferguson highlights, for example, the importance of credit and limited liability company stating that these are perhaps the most remarkable innovations in mankind's history. It's easy to agree with him. Without financial structures, many other innovations wouldn't have developed. 

Must read for bankers and politicians

Ferguson's book is a must read for everyone working in the financial sector. More importantly, it should be read by politicians in order to understand that blaming financial sector about the crisis is like shooting your own leg. The financial sector is a solution, not a problem for the political (not financial!) crisis we are living. 

Movie on Youtube

Niall Ferguson The Ascent of Money 4 hours documentary movie

In addition, Ferguson's homepage includes a lot of interesting material for further reading. 

Key points:

• Throughout the history of Western civilization, there has been a recurrent hostility to finance and financiers, rooted in the idea that those who make their living from lending money are somehow parasitical on the "real" economic activities of agriculture and manufacturing. This hostility has three causes. It is partly because debtors have tended to outnumber creditors and the former have seldom felt very well disposed towards the latter. It is partly because financial crises and scandals occur frequently enough to make finance appear to be a cause of poverty rather than prosperity, volatility rather than stability. And it is partly because, for centuries, financial services in countries all over the world were disproportionately provided by the members of ethnic or religious minorities, who had been excluded from land ownership or public office but enjoyed success in finance because of their own tight-knit networks of kinship and trust. 
• The evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization, from ancient Babylon to present-day Hong Kong. 
• Paradoxically, the people who live in the world's safest country are also the world's most insured. 
• If the last four millennia had witnessed the ascent of man the thinker, we now seemed to be living through the ascent of man the banker.
• The financial sector has also become the most powerful magnet in the world for academic talent. 
• A 2008 survey revealed that two thirds of Americans did not understand how compound interest worked. 
• Poverty is not the result of rapacious financiers exploiting the poor. It has much more to do with the lack of financial institutions, with the absence of banks, not their presence. Only when borrowers have access to efficient credit networks can they escape from the clutches of loan sharks, and only when savers can deposit their money in reliable banks can it be channelled from the idle to the industrious of from the rich to the poor. 
• If the financial system has a defect, it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like. 
• Hunter-gathers do not trade. They raid. Nor do they save, consuming their food as and when they find it. They therefore have no need of money. 
• For Incas, gold was the "sweat of the sun".
• Money, it is conventional to argue, is a medium of exchange, which has the advantage of eliminating inefficiencies of barter; a unit of account, which facilitates valuation and calculation; and a store of value, which allows economic transactions to be conducted over long periods as well as geographical distances. To perform all these functions optimally, money has to be available, affordable, durable, fungible, portable and reliable. Because they fulfil most of these criteria, metals such as gold, silver and bronze were for millennia regarded as the ideal monetary raw material. 
• Value of precious metal is not absolute. Money is worth only what someone else is willing to give you for it. An increase in its supply will not make a society richer, thought it may enrich the government that monopolizes the production of money. Other things being equal, monetary expansion will merely make prices higher. 
• When human beings first began to produce written records of their activities they did so not to write history, poetry or philosophy, but to do business. 
• Banknotes, which originated in seventh-century China, are pieces of paper which have next to no intrinsic worth. They are simply promises to pay. 
• What the conquistadors failed to understand is that money is a matter of belief, even faith: belief in person paying us; belief in the person issuing the money he uses or the institution that honours his cheques or transfers. Money is not metal. It is trust inscribed. And it does not seem to matter much where it is inscribed: on silver, on clay, on paper, on a liquid crystal display. Anything can serve as money, from the cowrie shells of the Maldives to the huge stone discs used on the Pacific islands of Yap. And now, it seems, in this electronic age nothing can serve as money too. 
• The central relationship that money crystallizes is between lender and borrower. 
• Without the foundation of borrowing and lending, the economic history of our world scarcely have got off the ground. And without ever-growing network of relationships between creditors and debtors, today's global economy would grind to halt. Contrary to the famous song in the musical Cabaret, money does not literally make the world go round. But it does make staggering quantities of people, goods and services go around the world. 
• Who were Medici? They were foreign exchange dealers: members of the Arte de Cambio (the Moneychangers' Guild). They came to be known as bankers (banchieri) because, like the Jews in Venice, they did their business literally seated at benches behind tables in the street. ... Prior to the 1930s, it might be legitimately be suggested, the Medici were more gangsters than bankers: a small-time clan, notable more for low violence than for high finance. 
• In finance small is seldom beautiful.
• The ability to finance war through a market for government debts was, like so much else in financial history, an invention of the Italian Renaissance. "The fighting is possible only if you can raise the money to pay for it".
• Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. - Milton Friedman
• There are essentially five steps to high inflation: 1) War led not only to shortages of goods but also to 2) short-term government borrowing from the central bank, 3) which effectively turned debt into cash, thereby expanding the money supply, 4) causing public expectations of inflation to shift and the demand for cash balances to fall 5) and prices of goods to rice. 
• Hyperinflation is always and everywhere a political phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without fundamental malfunction of a country's political economy. 
• Inflation has come down partly because many of the items we buy, from clothes to computers, have got cheaper as a result of technological innovation and the relocation of production to low-wage economies in Asia. 
• In a greying society, there is a huge and growing need for fixed income securities, and for low inflation to ensure that the interest they pay retains its purchasing power.
• It is the company that enables thousands of individuals to pool their resources for risky, long-term projects that require the investment of vast sums of capital before profits can be realized. After the advent of banking and the birth of the bond market, the next step in the history of the ascent of money was therefore the rise of the joint-stock, limited-liability corporation: joint-stock because the company's capital was jointly owned by multiple investors; limited-liability because the separate existence of the company as a legal "person" protected the investors from losing all their wealth if the venture failed. Their liability was limited to the money they had used to buy a stake in the company. Smaller enterprises might operate just as well as partnerships. But those who aspired to span continents needed the company. 
• Stock markets are mirrors of the human psyche. 
• The biggest challenge of VOC, the first company in the world, was the principal-agent problem: the tendency of its men on the spot to trade on their won account, bungle transactions or simply default the company. 
• In perhaps the most important work of American economic history ever published, Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz argued that it was the Federal Reserve System that bore the primary responsibility for turning the crisis of 1929 into a Great Depression. 
• The history of risk management is one long struggle between our vain desire to be financially secure - as secure as, say a Scottish widow - and the hard reality that there really is no such thing as "the future" singular. There are only multiple, unforeseen futures, which will never lose their capacity to take us by surprise. 
• Most primitive societies at least attempt to hoard food and other provision to tide them over hard times. And our tribal species intuitively grasped from the earliest times that it makes sense to pool resources, since there is genuine safety in numbers. Appropriately, given our ancestors' chronic vulnerability, the earliest forms of insurance were probably burial societies, which set aside resources to guarantee a tribe member a decent interment. 
• Saving in advance of probable future adversity remains the fundamental principle of insurance, whether it is against death, the effects of old age, sickness or accident. The trick is knowing how much to save and what to to with those savings to ensure that there is enough money in the kitty to cover the costs of catastrophe when it strikes. 
• Insurance, in other words, is where the risks and uncertainties of daily life meet the risks and uncertainties of finance. 
• Before the dawn of modern probability theory, insurers were the gamblers: now they are the casino. 
• The origin of hedging, appropriately enough, are agricultural. 
• A pure hedge eliminates price risk entirely. 
• The world is divided in two: those who are (or can be) hedged, and those who are not (or cannot be). You need money to be hedged. 
• When we play Monopoly we can dream of buying whole streets. What the game tells us, in complete contradiction to its original inventor's intention, is that it's smart to own property. The more you own, the more you make. 
• Nothing beats bricks and mortar as an investment. 
• "Safe as houses": the phrase tells you all you need to know about why people all over the world yearn to own their own homes. But that phrase means something more precise in the world of finance. It means that there is nothing safer than lending money to people with property. Why? Because if they default on the loan, you can repossess the house. Even if they run away, the house can't. As the Germans say, land and buildings are immobile property. 
• Home ownership was for most of history, the exclusive privilege of an aristocratic elite. Even the right to vote in elections was originally a function of property ownership. In rural England before 1832, according to statutes passed in the fifteenth century, only men who owned freehold property worth at least forty shillings a year in a particular county were entitled to vote. 
• If the old class system based on elite property ownership was distinctively British, the property-owning democracy was made in America. 
• Those who ran Saving and Loans at Freddie Mac could live by the comfortable 3-6-3 rule: pay 3 per cent on deposits, lend money at 6 per cent and be on the golf course by 3 o'clock every afternoon. 
• The best way to rob a bank is to own one!
• "We want everyone in America to own their home". - George W. Bush in October 2002. 
• "It is in our national interest that more people own their home". - George W. Bush in December 2003
• "People who own property feel a sense of ownership in their future and their society. They study, save, work, strive and vote."
• NINJA loan: No Income No Job or Assets
• Property rights will eventually lead to democracy. - Hernando de Soto
• Today you can tell the owner-occupied houses from the rest by their better fences and painted walls. The houses whose ownership remains contested are, by contrast, seedy shacks. As everyone knows, owners generally take better care of properties than tenants do. 
• There is no doubt that home ownership has changed people's attitudes in Quilmes. Arrording to one recent study, those who have acquired property titles have become significantly more individualist and materialist in their attitudes than those who are still squatting. 
• It is not owning property that gives you security: it just gives your creditors security. Real security comes from having a steady income. For that reason, it may not be necessary for every entrepreneur in the developing world to raise money by mortgaging his or her house. In fact, home ownership may not be the key to wealth generation at all. 
• Roughly two fifths of the world's population is effectively outside the financial system, without access to bank accounts, much less credit. 
• The success of the Quantum Fund was staggering. If someone had invested USD 100 000 with Soros when he established his second fund in 1969 and had reinvested all the dividends, he would have been worth USD 130 million by 1994, an average annual growth rate of 35 per cent. 
• "In a crisis, markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" - John Maynard Keynes
• If Warren Buffet had charged investors in Berkshire Hathaway a typical 2 and 20 fund fees, he would have kept for himself USD 57 billion of the USD 62 billion his company has made for its shareholders over the past forty-two years. - John Kay
• Republic China has become banker to the United States of America.
• Economies that combined all these institutional innovations - banks, bond markets, stock markets, insurance and property owning democracy - performed better over the long run than those that did not, because financial intermediation generally permits a more efficient allocation or resources than, say, feudalism or central planning. 
• The ascent of money has been one of the driving forces behind human progress: a complex process of innovation, intermediation and integration has been as vital as the advance of science or the spread of law in mankind's escape from the drudgery of subsistence agriculture and the misery of the Malthusian trap. 
• The financial system is the brain of the economy... It acts as a coordinating activity that allocates capital, the lifeblood of economic activity, to its most productive uses by businesses and households. If capital goes to the wrong uses or does not flow at all, the economy will operate inefficiently, and ultimately economic growth will be low. 
• Macroeconomists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions. 
• Finance has a Darwinian quality. 
• Of the world's 100 largest companies in 1912, 29 were bankrupt by 1995, 48 had disappeared, and only 19 were still in the top 100. 

Osaatko ajatella?

Koska olet viimeksi ajatellut? Siis oikeasti ajatellut eli ottanut aikaa ajattelulle tekemättä mitään muuta. Istunut, keskittynyt ja ajatellut. 

Me kuvittelemme ajattelevamme paljon, tekevämme oikein ajatustyötä, mutta todellisuudessa ajattelemme aivan liian vähän. Itse heräsin tähän todellisuuteen lukiessani Henry Hazlittin teosta Thinking as a Science. Luen ja kirjoitan paljon, mutta ajattelen liian usein vain pinnallisesti, en systemaattisesti ajan kanssa ja keskittyen. Liian usein ihminen tarttuu ensimmäiseen ajatukseen, eikä ratkaise ongelmia ajattelemalla systemaattisesti läpi vaihtoehtoja ja siten parantaen ratkaisujaan. Teemme ja touhuamme, mutta emme ajattele. 

Ajatteletko, oikeasti?

Mitä on ajattelu?

Mitä sitten on kyky ajatella? Se on kyky yhdistää asioita mielessä. Se on kykyä keskittyä. Se on järjestelmällistä ongelmien ratkaisemista mielen avulla. Mitä suurempi ja laajempi tieto- ja kokemuspohja, sitä suurempi "tietopankki" henkilöllä on ja sitä parempi on hänen kyky ratkaisujen löytämiseen monipuolisesti. Lopputuloksena on laajempi ratkaisuvalikoima. Asiaa voi kuvata siten, että tietopankki on ihmisen kovalevy. Toisilla on kovalevyllä tallennettuna enemmän tiedostoja kuin toisilla. Ajatteleminen on näiden tiedostojen hakemista kovalevyltä, tiedon prosessointia, ajatusten yhdistämistä ja uusien ajatusten eli ideoiden synnyttämistä.

Kannattaako lukeminen?

Lukeminen on hyödyllistä. "Lukeminen kannattaa aina" sanotaan. Lukeminen on toisten ajatuksiin tutustumista. Se on tietopankin täyttämistä tiedostoilla. Lukeminen saa usein ajattelemaan, mutta lukemisen vaarallisuus piilee siinä, että oma ajattelu lähtee liiaksi seuraamaan lainattuja ajatuspolkuja. Lukeminen voi lukittaa omaa ajattelua. Siispä tietyn tietotason jälkeen Hazlitt suosittelee lukemisen lopettamista tai ainakin rajoittamista ja saman ajan käyttämistä mielummin ajattelemiseen tai kirjoittamiseen. Hazlitt vaatii myös lukemisen suunnittelua ja varoittaa lukemisen vaaroista. Olet sitä mitä luet, joten huonojen kirjojen lukeminen on sekä ajanhukkaa että suuremmassa määrin saastuttaa omaa ajatteluasi. Mieti siis mitä luet. 

Kannattaako kirjoittaminen?

Kirjoittaminen on hyvä tapa prosessoida ajatuksia. Kirjoittaminen tekee ajatukset näkyviksi ja antaa niille muodon. Kirjoittaminen myös dokumentoi ajatukset, jolloin niihin on helpompi myöhemmin palata. Mutta kirjoittaminen myös rajoittaa. Se on usein hidasta ja kaavamaista. Kirjoittaessa joutuu keskittymään enemmän muotoiluun ja sanojen valintaan, mikä on pois lennokkaalta ajatuksenjuoksulta. Siispä toisinaan on kirjoittamisen sijasta hyvä vaikka puhua nauhurille. Puhua ajatukset auki. Antaa ajatusten tulla. Pölistä.

Lue Henry Hazlittin Thinkin As a Science ja ota aikaa ajattelulle!

Hazlittin kirja on täydellinen ajatustenherättäjä. Se muuttaa omaa tapaasi ajatella ja lukea. Se pakottaa ajattelemaan. Lue se niin ymmärrät! Kirjan voi ladata ilmaiseksi PDF-muodossa tai tilata täältä Mises Insituutin sivuilta.

Minulle tämä kirja oli toistaiseksi kaikkein inspiroivin lukukokemus eikä ideoiden pulppuamisesta meinannut tulla lukemisen aikana loppua. Kirjani sivut ovat täynnä lukiessa syntyneitä ajatuksia ja ratkaisuja moniin alitajuntaisiin ongelmiin. Otin myös kirjasta opiksi: aiemmin luin kaikki junamatkat, nykyisin käytän matkasta puolituntia tai tunnin pelkästään ajatteluun. Katson junan ikkunasta ulos, pidän muistivihkon esillä ja keskityn ajattelemaan ratkaisuja esille nousseisiin ongelmiin. Tämän seurauksena ratkaisuni ovat ainakin omasta mielestäni parantuneet. Usein lopputuloksena on toimintatapa, joka ei alkuun tullut mieleenikään. Toisinaan tämän prosessin jälkeen huomaa, kuinka ideat tai ratkaisut syntyvät yön aikana alitajunnassa ja aamulla asian voi kirjoittaa paperille ratkaistuna. Suosittelen kokeilemaan!

Poimintoja

• When I use the word thinking, I mean thinking with a purpose, with an end in view, thinking to solve a problem.
• I beg no one to get frightened. Science does not necessarily mean test tubes and telescopes. I mean science in its broadest sense; and in this sense it means nothing more than organized knowledge.
• For our purposes, all sciences may be divided into two kinds: positive and normative. A positive science investigates the nature of things as they are. It deals simply with matters of fact. Such a science is physics, chemistry, psychology. A normative science is one which studies things as they ought to be. As the name implies, it seeks to establish a norm or pattern which ought to be adhered to. It studies means of reaching desired ends. To this class belong such sciences as ethics, education, agriculture.
• I object to the term "art" to designate any set of organized rules for doing a thing, because "art" also means the actual doing of that thing. And this thing may be done, and often is done, in total ignorance of the rules governing it. A man may possess the art of swimming—he may be able to swim— without any previous instruction, without any knowledge of how he ought to hold his body, arms and legs; just as a dog may do the same thing.
• The science of thinking, then, if such a science there be, is normative. Its purpose is to find those methods which will help us to think constructively and correctly.
• Before considering methods of thinking, however, it would be well to ask ourselves what thinking is. As stated before, the term is loosely used to cover a wide range of mental processes. These processes we may roughly divide into memory, imagination and reasoning. By "thinking" I mean reasoning.
• Modern psychologists tell us that all reasoning begins in perplexity, hesitation, doubt. "The process of reasoning is one of problem solving. . . . The occasion for the reasoning is always a thwarted purpose.' It is essential we keep this in mind. It differs from the popular conception even more than may appear at first sight. If a ma/n were to know everything he could not think. Nothing would ever puzzle him, his purposes would never be thwarted, he would never experience perplexity or doubt, he would have no problems. If we are to conceive of God as an All-Knower, we cannot conceive of Him as a Thinking Being. Thinking is reserved for beings of finite intelligence.
• We cannot think on " general principles. " To try this is like attempting to chew laughing gas. To think at all requires a purpose, no matter how vague. The best thinking, however, requires a definite purpose, and the more definite this purpose the more definite will be our thinking. Therefore in taking up any special line of thought, we must first find just what our end or purpose is, and thus get clearly in mind what our problems are.
• Our first step, then, is to get our problem or problems clearly in mind, and to state them as definitely as possible. A problem properly stated is a problem partly solved.
• Our next move was to classify. This is essential not only to systematic reasoning but to thinking of any kind. Classification is the process of grouping objects according to common qualities. But as almost all objects differ in some qualities and almost all have some qualities in common, it follows that, contrary to common belief, there is no one classification absolutely essential to any group of objects.
• One method applicable to almost all problems is what we may call either the deductive or the a priori method. This method reaches a conclusion without observation or experiment. It consists in reasoning from previous experience or from established principles to particular facts.
• And now we come to a whole host of effective methods, all of which may be classed as comparative. The comparative method is as old as thought itself, but it is strange that even scientists did not begin to use it consciously and consistently until almost the present generation. Nowhere is it better illustrated than in modern psychology. Most of the so-called branches of psychology are merely different forms of the comparative method of treatment " Abnormal psychology" is merely a comparison of abnormal mental types with normal mental types for the light they throw on each other. And none of these methods is of any value except in so far as it makes use of comparison.
• Often consciously used in the consideration of problems is the so-called historical method. This method, as its name implies, consists in obtaining knowledge of a thing by considering its past record. The word history is popularly used in so narrow a sense, however, being restricted only to the history of nations, and often merely to the political history of nations, that we can avoid confusion by calling this method the evolutionary. In the final analysis the method is comparative, for it really consists in comparing a thing at one period of development with itself at another period.
• Nowhere is the evolutionary method more strikingly seen than in biology. Since Darwin's great theory was promulgated the science has gone forward by leaps and bounds. We have derived untold benefit from a comparison of man and animals in the light of this hypothesis; even study of the development of individual man has been aided. The discovery of the fact of evolution constituted an incalculable advance, but the method for study which it furnished was of even greater importance.
• We are often exhorted to "observe." Presumably we are to do this '' on general principles. " Such advice is about as foolish as asking us to think on general principles. The absurdity is obvious. If we started out merely to observe, with no definite purpose in mind, we could keep it up forever. And get nowhere. Nine out of every ten observations would never be put to use. We would be sinfully wasting our time. To observe most profitably, just as to think most profitably, we must have a definite purpose. This purpose must be to test the truth of a supposition.
• The suggestions or suppositions are tested by observation, memory, experiment. Supposition and observation alternate.
• We are often aided in the solution of a problem by asking its opposite.
• The method of analogy likewise encourages suggestions. Analogy consists in noting certain likenesses between things, and assuming that they also possess other common qualities.
• Empirical observation. Empirical, at least for our present purposes, means merely that which comes within experience. But the term is generally opposed to scientific. This, however, is not what I mean to imply by the term empirical observation. I mean rather thinking on the basis merely of facts which occur in the natural course of events, which have not been systematically produced by ourselves or others for the purpose of solving a problem. Logicians usually call this method simply observation, and oppose it to experiment. But I object to calling this simply observation because experiment itself is really observation, only in one case we observe merely events which happen to occur, and in the other we observe the results of events which we have made occur. The true way of distinguishing these two methods would be to call one empirical observation, and the other experimental observation. This empirical method—if indeed I am justified in calling it a method—is the most common in all thinking.
• Empirical observation is used where experiment is impossible—often, unfortunately, where experiment is merely inconvenient. But valuable as empirical observation is, and often as we must use it, it should never be employed when we can experiment. When the empirical method is rightly used allowance always has to be made for certain irrelevant factors. But "making allowances" is always sheer guess work. The experimental method consists not in making allowances for certain factors,but in eliminating those factors.
• To make the experiment of any use we should first take two groups of pupils—the 
  larger the better. For it is obvious that if we take a great number of pupils and place them 
  in two groups the differences between the individuals will tend to offset one another.
• The experimental method has been well summed up by Thomson and Tait in their Nat
  ural Philosophy: "In all cases when a particular agent or  cause is to be studied, experiments should be arranged in such a way as to lead if possible to results depending on it alone; or, if this can- not be done, they should be arranged so as to increase the effects due to the cause to be studied till these so far exceed the unavoidable concomitants, that the latter may be considered as only disturbing, not essentially modifying the effects of the principal agent.''
• Every problem should be dealt with as many methods as possible. 
• 
  
  
  

  John Stuart Mill, in an essay on Jeremy Bentham, pointed out that the secret of the lat
  ter's strength and originality of thought lay in his method, which "may be shortly described as the method of detail; of treating wholes by separating them into their parts, abstractions by resolving them into things,—classes and generalities by distinguishing them into the individuals of which they are made up; and breaking every question into pieces before attempting to solve it."
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  Knowledge furnishes problems, and the discovery of problems itself constitutes an intellectual advance.
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  Method is essential to good thinking. 
• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  The two most prominent errors made in classifying are (1) not making classifications mutually exclusive, (2) not making them cover all the objects or phenomena supposed to be classified.
• 
  
  
  
  Consider the classification of constructive methods into comparison,  observation, and experiment. It is apparent that these methods overlap. We cannot compare without observing, much of our observation involves comparison, when we experiment we 
  must of course observe the results obtained, and the results are usually always compared. All three methods could be classed under observation.
• We cannot overlook the excellent counsel of Blaise Pascal. He urges that we not only define our terms, but that whenever we use them we mentally substitute the defini
  tion.
• The quickest way to detect error in analogy is to carry it out as far as it will go—and fur
  ther. Every analogy will break down somewhere. Any analogy if carried out far enough becomes absurd.
• And in thinking, when we leave one method and take up another, we should try to forget entirely the first conclusion and begin on the problem as if we had never taken it up before. After we have taken up all the applicable methods, then, and then only, should we begin to compare conclusions.
• If the deductive method is to be checked up by experiment, and the results of the experiment are always to be taken, why not experiment first, and omit theory altogether? Leaving aside the fact that theory is the best guide for experiment—that were it not for theory and the problems and hypotheses that come out of it, we would not know the points we wanted to verify, and hence would experiment aimlessly—a more serious objection is that experiment is seldom if ever perfect, for it nearly always involves some unverified assumption. 
• Experiment and deduction are not the only methods which can be checked up against each other. We can do likewise with the comparative and the experimental, the historical and the theoretical—in fact, all viewpoints applicable to any one problem.
• What is essential is that all suggestions be tested out, either by memory, observation or experiment, in all their implications, and that the tendency be resisted to accept the first solution that suggests itself.
• Thomas A. Edison says he always rejects an easy solution of any problem and looks for something difficult. But the inventor has one great advantage over any other kind of thinker. He can test his conclusion in a tangible way. If his device works, his thinking was right; if his device doesn't work, his thinking was wrong. But the philosopher, the scientist, the social reformer, has no such satisfactory test. His only satisfaction is the feeling that his results harmonize with all his experience.
• The science can receive justice only in a book devoted entirely to it.
• What is the hardest task in the world? To think. —EMERSON.
• Few people will admit specific faults in themselves of any kind, especially if these happen to be intellectual.
• Any train of thought is made possible by previous connections of ideas in our minds. 
• No thought can enter our minds unless it is associated in some way with the previous thought. Psychologists have traditionally classified associations into four kinds: association by succession, by contiguity, by similarity and by contrast.
• Any attempt to show why the mind acts in this way, any explanation of the way in which the different kinds of association are made possible, would bring us into physiological psychology, would involve a study of the brain and the nervous system. For our purposes it is sufficient to keep in mind that such associations do take place. Without them no idea can occur. Without them thought is impossible.
• But when we are thinking with a purpose, in a word, when we are reasoning, we reject all associations which have no bearing on our purpose, and select only those which serve it.
• Concentration does not, as popularly supposed, mean keeping the mind fastened on one object or idea or in one place. It consists in having a problem or purpose constantly before one. It means keeping our thought moving toward one desired end. Concentration is often regarded as intense or focused attention. But the fact is that all attention is focused attention. Psychologists are fairly well agreed that we can attend to only one thing at a time. Mind wandering, and so called distributed attention, is really attention directed first to one thing, then to another, then to another; or first to one thing, then to another, and then back again to the original object, resting but a few moments on each idea.
• Concentration may best be denned as prolonged or sustained attention. It means keeping the mind on one subject or problem for a relatively long period, or at least continually reverting to some problem whenever one's thoughts momentarily leave it.
• But if most men were so convinced that concentration is such an unquestionable virtue, they would practice it a little more. At least they would make greater efforts to practice it than they do at present. The truth is that concentration, per se, is of little value. The value of concentration depends almost entirely on the subject concentrated on.
• But if you immediately abandoned every problem you started to think of, whenever you came across one which you imagined was just as important, you would probably never really solve any big question.
• Our attention is guided by interest. If a man merely allows his thoughts to flow at random, thinking only of those things which spontaneously arouse his interest, he may or may not attend to things worth thinking about. All will depend upon the path in which his natural interests run.
• The brain has no hidden mechanism by which it can separate the true from the false. To be sure, if we use no effort the most usual and strongest associations will be more likely to assert themselves, and it may be that often these will have more warrant than unusual and weaker associations. Outside of this, there is no superiority.
• As an experiment, then, the next time you come across a puzzle which you fail to solve at first tilt, write down all the unsatisfactory solutions suggested, and all the questions, difficulties and objections met with. You may leave this for a few weeks. When you return to it a few of the difficulties will look less formidable, and some of the questions will have practically answered themselves.
• It has been frequently said that many of the world's greatest inventions were due to accident. In a sense this is true. But the accident was prepared for by previous hard thinking. It would never have occurred had not this thinking taken place. It is said that the idea of gravitation came to Newton because an apple fell on his head. Perhaps. But apples had been falling ever since there were apple trees…
• Our subject is prejudice. Our object is to free ourselves as much as possible from our own prejudices…. Prejudice is often confused with intolerance. They are not the same. … The fact that a man is unprejudiced does not make his opinion right. And the fact that a man is prejudiced does not necessarily make his opinion wrong; though it must be admitted that if it is right it will be so only by accident.
• We desire an opinion to be right because we would be personally benefited if it were. Another reason why we desire an opinion to be right is because we already happen to hold it. ...To reverse an opinion is to confess that we were previously wrong. 
• The hypothesis maker has a specific form of fear of inconsistency.... The desire to prove hypothesis correct, simply because it is our hypothesis, or because it is a fascinating hypothesis. 
• An opinion is a habit of thought. 
• It is well known that the opinions of a man over forty are pretty well set. 
• We agree with others, we adopt the same opinions of the people around us, because we fear to disagree. ... Just as with fashions in clothes there are people who strive to imitate others, so there are people who devote themselves entirely to being "different."
• If you make originality and radicalness your aim, you will attain neither truth nor originality. But if you make truth your aim you will very likely get truth, and originality will come of itself.
• The distinguishing mark of the great thinkers of the ages was their comparative freedom from the prejudices of their time and community. In order to avoid these prejudices one must be constantly and uncompromisingly sounding his own opinions. Eternal vigilance is the price of an open mind.
• We think in order to have opinions. We have opinions in order to guide action; in order to act upon should occasion require.
• The doubtful attitude should be maintained only so long as you are actively searching for evidence bearing on a question. Maintained at any other time or used in any other way it means merely uncertainty, indefiniteness, vagueness, and leads nowhere.
• Next to being right in this world, the best of all things is to be clearly and definitely wrong, because you will come out somewhere. If you go buzzing about between right and wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are absolutely and thoroughly and persistently wrong, you must, some of these days, have the extreme good fortune of knocking your head against a fact, and that sets you all straight again
• Any decision would be better than no decision. 
• A good book should be read over and over again; and the art of reading is the art of skipping.
• Many learned men have read themselves into dreamy stupidity; men who know what everybody else thought, but who never have any thoughts of their own.
• Learning to think by reading is like learning to draw by tracing. … No man will ever become a great thinker by reading. It can never become a substitute for thought. At best, as John Locke says, "Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge, it is thinking makes what we read ours.
• The safest way to have no thoughts of one's own is to take up a book every moment one has nothing else to do. ...A man should read only when his thoughts stagnate at their source, which will happen often enough even with the best of minds. On the other hand, to take up a book for the purpose of scaring away one's own original thoughts is a sin against the Holy Spirit. It is like running away from Nature to look at a museum of dried plants, or gaze at a landscape in copperplate.
• A science is nothing more than the organized solution of a number of related problems.
• In mathematics, to understand is to agree.
• Every large subject has gathered about it a vast literature, more than one man can ever hope to cover completely. This literature may be said to consist wholly of two things: information as to facts, and opinions on those facts.
• The wording is never the thought. Strictly speaking, "thought" is something which can exist only in the mind. It can never be transferred to paper. ...The fact is that words, though they are not thought, are the associates of thought. 
• The more knowledge a man has the more problems he will have. 
• The best practice for boxing is boxing. The best practice for solving important questions is solving important questions. 
• We should plan our reading. If you cannot keep a list of books you intend to read, at least keep a list of books you have read. We should plan not only with regard to topics and subjects, but with regard to authors. Whether consciously or not, we tend to imitate the authors we read. This emphasizes the importance of reading the best books, and only the best books. Books are like your nutrition. 
• To quote Arnold Bennett: "Unless and until a man has formed a scheme of knowledge, be it but a mere skeleton, his reading must necessarily be unphilosophical. He must have attained to some notion of the interrelations of the various branches of knowledge before he can properly comprehend the branch of knowledge in which he specializes."
• Lay out some definite end, some big objective, to be attained; and before reading a book we should ask how that helps us to attain it.
• To think and act differently, merely for the sake of being different, is unprofitable and dangerous, all questions of ethics aside.
• To now is one thing; to do another. We do not act according to knowledge; we act according to habit. Knowledge used does not need to be remembered; practice forms habits and habits make memory unnecessary. The rule is nothing: the application is everything. 

Richard Branson - Brittien Hjallis Harkimo

Elämänkerrat ovat hyvää, kevyempää luettavaa asiakirjallisuuden rinnalla. Valitettavasti hyvät bisneselämänkerrat ovat määrältään varsin harvinaisia verrattuna esimerkiksi poliitikkojen elämänkertoihin. Syy lienee luonnollinen, poliitikko tarvitsee laajempaa kansansuosiota kuin yrittäjä tai yritysjohtaja. 

Hyvässä elämänkerrassa on oikeastaan kaksi kolme keskeistä kriteeriä:

1. Henkilön pitää olla kiinnostava persoona
2. Elämänkerran kirjoitustyylin pitää olla aito, rehellinen ja monipuolinen eikä liian minäkeskeinen
3. Keskittyminen kiinnostaviin tarinoihin, ei niinkään kronologiseen kerrontaan. 

Richard Branson: Losing My Virginity

Richard Branson - Brittien Hjallis Harkimo

Sir Richard Bransonin elämänkerta, tai oikeastaan yksi niistä, Losing My Virginity, täyttää nämä hyvän elämänkerran kriteerit. Branson on persoona isolla P:lla, liikemies, yrittäjä, seikkailija, jopa sekoilija ja myös self-made miljonääri. Hän on todellinen riskinottaja. Pelaaja. Mutta silti yllättävän usein onnistuja. Elämänkerran ja julkisen profiilin perusteella ristiriitainen ja mielipiteitä jakava persoona. Hänestä joko pitää tai vihaa. Suomessa hänen vastineensa on Hjallis Harkimo. 

Kirjoitustyyliltään Branson ei säästele elämänkerrassaan ketään. Ei itseään, ei ystäviään, ei poliitikkoja, ei kilpailijoita, ei sitten ketään. Kirjoitustyyli sopii brittiläiseen keltaiseen lehdistöön, sen verran suorapuheista ja skandaaleja peittelemätöntä on tilitys. Branson kertoo sekä omista että tiettyjen tuntemiensa julkisuuden henkilöiden huume- ja seksisekoiluista tyylillä joka ei tee kunniaa kenellekään. Varsin moni voisi vetää kirjoituksista herneet nenään tai nostaa kanteen kunnianloukkauksesta. Minäkeskeisyys toki on ylitsevuotavaa, mutta kun siihen sisältyy myös itseironiaa ja omien virheiden tunnustamista, on se hyväksyttävää. 

Sisällöllisesti kirja etenee kronologisesti ja kappaleet on jaettu vuosien mukaan, mutta onneksi painopiste on sentään kiinnostavimmissa asiakokonaisuuksissa. Opiskeluvuosien hulivili ei oikein istunut mihinkään muottiin, joten niinpä hänestä tuli oman tiensä kulkija, seikkailja ja yrittäjä. Kirjan kantava teema on suhde riskiin. Ulkopuolisen näkökulmasta Branson on ottanut jatkuvasti järjettömiä riskejä. Kuitenkin tilanteeseen sidottuna ja taustat avattuina riskit ovat olleet ymmärrettäviä. Branson ei ole ainakaan pelännyt menettävänsä mitään, ei edes omaa henkeään. 

Keskeiseksi nousee myös toistuvasti muiden arvio Bransonista ja hänen toiminnastaan eli ketkä uskovat häneen ja hänen ideoihinsa. Rahoitusmarkkinoiden usko on jatkuvasti koetuksella, mutta kummasti mies selviää ilman konkurssia. Julkisen sektorin teilaus taas on toistuvaa ja totaalista, mikä kulminoituu erityisesti taistelussa British Airwaysia vastaan vapaasta oikeudesta harjoittaa lentoliiketoimintaa. 

Virgin Group - Monialakonserni

Virgin Group - Brändätty kasvuyrityskonserni

Richard Branson on monialayrittäjä. Heitä kohtaa harvoin. Vielä harvinaisempaa on hänen toimintamallinsa eli saman brandin laajentaminen useammalle toisistaan riippumattomille toimialoille. Bransonin yritys, Virgin Group on vaikka mitä, kuten yhtiön liiketoiminta-aluelistasta voi lukea. Virgin on ennen kaikkea kasvualusta Bransonin potentiaalisiksi katsomille kasvuyrityksille. Yrityksiä yhdistää lähinnä voimakas kuluttajalähtöisyys eli tunnetun brändin hyöty laajennetaan uusiin kuluttajabisneksiin uskottavuuden luomiseksi ja perinteisten toimijoiden haastamiseksi. Tässä yhtiö on onnistunut poikkeuksellisen hyvin ja se tarjoaa mielenkiintoisen, omalaatuisen mallin kasvuyritystoiminnan tutkimiselle. 

Richard Branson - Edes taivas ei ole rajana

Richard Branson - Tarinan opetus

Mitä voimme oppia Richard Bransonilta ja Virgin Groupista? Ainakin rohkeuden yrittää ja ottaa riskiä. Mies ei ole jäänyt laakereilleen lepäämään ensimmäisen onnistumisen jälkeen, vaikka miljoonat riittäisivät mukavaan elämäntyyliin. Hän on toistuvasti ottanut uusia riskejä ja asettanut entisen kyseenalaiseksi. Kenties siksi hän on kasvanut nykyiseen mittakaavaan. Toiseksi hän on onnistunut luomaan sekä itsestään että Virginista kiinnostavan brändin, joka hyödyttää liiketoimintaa. Tällaiset henkilö- ja monialabrandit ovat maailman mittakaavassa harvinaisuuksia. Kolmanneksi hän on uskaltanut unelmoida suuria ja uskonut unelmiensa toteutumiseen. Monet ideat ovat alkuvaiheessa vaikuttaneet kaukaisilta ja toteuttamiskelvottomilta, mutta askel kerrallaan ja riittävällä etunojalla ideat ovat tulleet realistisemmiksi ja lopulta toteutuneet. Kaikki ideat eivät tietenkään ole onnistuneet, joten neljäs opetus on kyky epäonnistua ja ottaa opiksi näistä epäonnistumisista ilman että ottaa niitä liian vakavasti ja henkilökohtaisesti. Tarinan viides opetus on kyky sanoa ei ja lopettaa ajoissa. Bransonille tarjotaan jos jonkinlaista ideaa toteutettavaksi, etenkin nyt kun hän on menestynyt ja varakas. Innostuvasta ja intuitiivisesta luonteestaan huolimatta hän osaa myös sanoa ei, eikä lähde mukaan jokaiseen hullutukseen, jos harkinta ei ajatusta puolla. Kaikesta innostuva voi helposti löytää itsensä hyväksikäytettynä. Lisäksi Branson on osannut luopua ajoissa tai yksinkertaisesti lopettaa sellaiset liiketoimet, jotka eivät täytä tavoitteita ja joiden tulevaisuuteen hän ei itse usko. Liian moni rakastuu yksittäiseen liiketoimintaan osaamatta luovuttaa kun aika olisi. 

Hyvä liiketoimintamalli

Millainen on sinun liiketoimintamallisi? Miten pystyt kuvaamaan sen? Entä miten esität sen ulkopuoliselle? Miten siitä voi kommunikoida? Monikymmensivuiset liiketoimintasuunnitelmat eivät ole enää tätä päivää. Ensinnäkin niiden kirjoittamiseen kuluu tolkuttomasti aikaa ja toiseksi kukaan ei niitä jaksa lukea. Valmistumisen jälkeen ne usein unohtuvatkin pöytälaatikkoon pölyttymään. 

Business Model Generation

Aikamme yksi kiinnostavimmista strategia-ajattelijoista Alexander Osterwalder julkaisi yhdessä Yves Pigneurin ja suuren kanssajoukon kanssa uudenlaisen, pelkistetyn ja hyvin visualisoidun alustan liiketoimintamallin kuvaamiseksi. Business Model Generation on julkaistu sekä kirjana että vapaasti ladattavana työkalupakettina. Lisää aiheesta löytyy myös Business Model Alchemist-blogista. 

Luin jokin aika sitten kyseisen kirjan ja ihastuin. Kyseessä on selkein ja viihdyttävin koskaan lukemani strategiakirja. Siinä keskitytään jokaisen liiketoimintamallin kannalta keskeisiin pohdittaviin asioihin ja osataan kuvata kiitettävästi eri osioiden väliset suhteet esimerkkien avulla. Todella viihdyttävää luettavaa! Suosittelen teosta ja mallia erityisesti aloitteleville yrittäjille sekä pk-sektorin konsulteille. Myös sijoittajalle se on oiva työkalu sijoituskohteensa liiketoimintamallin testaamiseen.

Syksyn mittaan olen huomannut, että mallia on alettu käyttämään sekä akateemisella puolella, konsulttien toimesta että myös yritysjohdossa viestimässä ja kiteyttämässä yrityksen strategiaa. Työkalu sopii erittäin hyvin alustaksi hallituksessa käsiteltävään strategiaan, koska tältä pohjalta hallituksen jäsenen pitäisi pystyä muodostamaan riittävän hyvä kuva kokonaisuudesta. Aika näyttää tuleeko tästä mallista Michael E. Porterin viiden voiman mallia vastaava klassikko vai onko kyseessä vain ohimenevä strategiatrendi. 

Cone Made

Toinen erittäin kiinnostava ja toimiva työkalu liiketoimintamallin kuvaamiseen ja strategiatyöhön on suomalaisen Cone Advisorin kehittelemä Cone Made-malli. Sen avulla johto pystyy selkeästi kiteyttämään yhtiön mission, vision ja strategiaelementit sekä linkittämään strategisesti tärkeiden hankkeiden johtamisen ja seurannan yhteen virtuaaliseen alustaan, jota vastuuhenkilöt, johtoryhmä ja hallitus voivat aktiivisesti seurata mistä tahansa. Erityisesti monialakonsernin johtamisessa tällainen järjestelmä on osoittanut etunsa. Malliin voi tutustua tarkemmin täältä. Mallin pääarkkitehti tohtori Jukka Ala-Mutka kirjoittaa aktiivisesti ja asiantuntevasti liiketoimintamallien innovaatioista, ketterästä strategiasta ja johtamisesta omassa blogissaan. Suosittelen seurattavaksi aihealueesta kiinnostuneille. 

Superomistajat ja maailman yritykset

Kuka hallitsee maailman yrityksiä? 

Zürichiläinen tutkijaryhmä esitti äskettäin verkostoanalyysiin perustuvan vastauksensa tähän kiinnostavaan kysymykseen. Stefania Vitali, James Glattfelder ja Stefano Battiston tutkivat asiaa 43 000 kansainvälisen yrityksen verkostoanalyysilla ja päätyi tutkimuksissaan siihen tulokseen, että suhteellisen pieni, etenkin finanssitaloista koostuva, yritysryhmä hallitsee maailman taloutta. Aiheesta kirjoitti mm. New Scientist-lehti sekä Teemu J. Kammonen Uusi Suomi blogissaan. Itse tutkimuksesta voi lukea täältä ja tutkijoiden aikaisemmista tutkimuksista täältä. Varsinainen tutkimuspaperi löytyy täältä. 

Kuva 1318 yrityksen verkostosta, joka kuvastaa maailmantalouden ydintä. Punaisella merkityt ovat superyrityksiä ja keltaisella merkityt hyvin verkostoituneita yrityksiä. (Kuva PLoS One)

Superyritykset ja verkottunut omistus

Tutkijat löysivät 1 318 kansainvälisen yrityksen ryhmittymän, jonka omistuksessa oli verkostojen kautta peräti 60% maailman reaalitalouden liikevaihdosta. Tästä ydinryhmittymästä tutkijat tiivistivät vielä pienemmän joukon, 147:n niin kutsutun superyrityksen ringin. Näillä 147 superyrityksellä oli hallussaan 40% koko kansainvälisen kaupan ja yritysverkoston omistuksesta. Superyritykset muodostivat tutkijoiden verkostoanalyysissa keskenään verkottuneen joukon, joka omisti suurelta osin toisensa. 

Tutkijoiden mukaan omistusvallan keskittyminen tai hajaantuminen ei sinällänsä ole hyvä tai paha asia, mutta superomistajien keskinäinen riippuvuus voi vaikuttaa paljonkin asioihin. 

Maailman superyritykset

Tutkijat esittävät tutkimuksensa lopussa maailman 50 verkostoituneimman yrityksen listan. Näillä yrityksillä on siis heidän mukaansa suurin kontrolli maailman taloudessa. 

1. Barclays plc

2. Capital Group Companies Inc

3. FMR Corporation

4. AXA

5. State Street Corporation

6. JP Morgan Chase & Co

7. Legal & General Group plc

8. Vanguard Group Inc

9. UBS AG

10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc

11. Wellington Management Co LLP

12. Deutsche Bank AG

13. Franklin Resources Inc

14. Credit Suisse Group

15. Walton Enterprises LLC

16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp

17. Natixis

18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc

19. T Rowe Price Group Inc

20. Legg Mason Inc

21. Morgan Stanley

22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc

23. Northern Trust Corporation

24. Société Générale

25. Bank of America Corporation

26. Lloyds TSB Group plc

27. Invesco plc

28. Allianz SE 

29. TIAA

30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company

31. Aviva plc

32. Schroders plc

33. Dodge & Cox

34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*

35. Sun Life Financial Inc

36. Standard Life plc

37. CNCE

38. Nomura Holdings Inc

39. The Depository Trust Company

40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance

41. ING Groep NV

42. Brandes Investment Partners LP

43. Unicredito Italiano SPA

44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan

45. Vereniging Aegon

46. BNP Paribas

47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc

48. Resona Holdings Inc

49. Capital Group International Inc

50. China Petrochemical Group Company

* Lehman still existed in the list since 2007 dataset used

Pohdintaa

Zürichiläisryhmän tutkimustulos on erittäin kiinnostava. Käytetty menetelmä on vaativa ja se perustuu suuren tietomäärän datalouhintaan ja yhteyksien havaitsemiseen eri toimijoiden välillä. Kuulin esityksen tästä menetelmästä EBRF2010-konferenssissa ja olin todellakin suu auki ihmetyksestä. Tämän tutkimusmenetelmän sovellusalueet ovat moninaiset, joten on ilo, että sitä käytetään myös omistajuuden tutkimuskentällä. 

Mitä itse tutkimustulokseen tulee niin en ole yllättynyt löydöksestä. Ensinnäkin en ole yllättynyt siitä, että rahasto-omistajuuden ja globaalin hajautuksen aikakaudella rahavirrat kulkevat tiettyjen suurien toimijoiden kautta. En myöskään ole yllättynyt, että kyseessä on finanssitalot, jotka ensisijaisesti hallinnoivat globaaleja rahastoja. Sen sijaan yllätyin siitä, että minulle edes jossain määrin tuttuja yrityksiä listalla oli vain noin 20/50 eli paljon on parannettavaa talouden tuntemuksessa. Yllätys ei ole, että listalla ei ole pohjoismaisia yrityksiä. 

Mitä omistajuuteen tulee niin lienee paikallaan kysyä, ovatko nämä tahot omistajia omistajuuden laajassa merkityksessä vai ovatko nämä tahot "vain" globaaleihin yrityksiin sijoitettuna olevan pääoman hallitsijoita? Tarkoitan sitä, että näiden organisaatioiden rahat tulevat pääosin asiakkailta yhtiöiden hallinnoimiin rahastoihin, jotka sitten omistavat yhtiöiden osakkeita. Päätösvalta rahaston sijoituksista on ilman muuta hallinnointiyhtiöllä, mutta kuitenkin lopullinen päätösvalta pääoman suhteen on viime kädessä asiakkailla. Mikäli asiakkaat päättäisivät vetää pääomansa jostain näistä toimijoista pois, murenisi yhtiön asema hyvinkin nopeasti. Tästä hyvä esimerkki on listalla oleva Lehman Brothers. 

Pohdinnan paikka on myös näiden yhtiöiden käyttämä omistajavalta. Käyttävätkö ne yhtiöissä omistajavaltaa vai ei, ja jos käyttävät niin miten? Tyypillisesti finanssitalojen rahastot käyttävät valtaansa markkinoilla ostamalla, pitämällä ja myymällä, mutta eivät puutu yrityksen varsinaiseen hallintoon. Täten siis voisi sanoa, että näiden superyritysten käyttämä valta on välillistä sijoittajavaltaa, eikä niinkään suoraa omistajavaltaa. 

Maailman talouden keskittyneisyydestä on pyritty rakentamaan myös salaliittoteorioita kapean ryhmän maailmanvallasta. Tutkimustulos saattaa äkkiseltään antaa aihetta tällaisten ajatusten vahvistamiseksi, mutta kun asiaa purkaa pintaa syvemmälle ymmärtää, ettei tällaisella joukolla voi olla yhtenäistä agendaa. Ensinnäkin jo tämä joukko on sekä kansallisuuksiltaan että arvoiltaan hyvin moninainen. Sveitsiläisen, USA:laisen, kiinalaisen ja japanilaisen lähtökohdat ovat erilaiset. Toistaalta näiden yritysten todellinen vaikuttajajoukko on näiden yritysten asiakkaat, joka joukkona laajentaa intressipiirin jo vähintäänkin niin laajaksi ja globaaliksi, että salaliittoteorioilta menee pohja. Barclayn pääjohtajalla on varmasti valtaa sekä suoraan että välillisesti maailman yritystaloudessa, mutta ei hänkään ole riippumaton maailmantalouden lainalaisuuksista. Selkein johtopäätös materiaalista on, että hajautuneet markkinat toimivat suorien sijoitusten sijasta finanssitalojen hallinnoimien rahastojen kautta ja finanssitalot kilpailevat yksittäisten sijoittajien pääomavirroista. 

Yksinkertainen on kaunista - ja kannattavaa

Mitä yhteistä on

• naisten alusvaatteilla
• jätteiden keräyksellä
• lemmikkityynyillä
• "Elämä on hyvää" T-paidoilla
• oluen valmistamisella
• burrito ravintolaketjulla
• ympäristöystävällisillä siivousvälineillä
• luonnonmukaisilla saippuoilla
• kukkien puhelinmyynnillä
• naisten kuntosaliketjulla?

Kaikillä näillä yksinkertaisilla liikeideoilla joku on tehnyt satoja miljoonia dollareita rahaa. Listaus löytyy CNBC:n kokoelmasta 10 Ideas That Made $100 Million - CNBC. CNBC:llä on myös sarja nimeltä How I Made My Millions, jossa esitellään onnistuneita liikeideoita yrittäjien kertomana. Kiinnostava konsepti.

Yksinkertaista ja arkista massoille

Menestysideoita tarkastellessa nousee mielestäni esille kolme keskeistä seikkaa:

1. Yksinkertaisuus: toimivat ideat ovat loppujen lopuksi yksinkertaisia. Niiden synnyttämiseen ei tarvita akateemista pätevyyttä vaan kuka tahansa voisi ne keksiä. Ehkä moni yrittää liian vaikeaa tai ajattelee liian monimutkaisesti. Yksinkertainen näyttäisi olevan toimivaa ja tuottavaa.
2. Arkisuus: parhaat ideat näyttävät kumpuavan ihmisten arjesta. Ne helpottavat jokapäiväistä elämää ja ovat osa jatkuvia rutiineita. Menestyvät innovaatiot eivät synny kammioissa vaan pienistä arkipäiväisistä havainnoista. High techin toimialojen sijasta menestysideat edustavat low techia eli hyvin perinteisiä ja tylsinä pidettyjä aloja.
3. Massa: parhaat ideat kohdistuvat massoille. Täten tuotteelle tai palvelulle saadaan suuri volyymi. Kapitalismi on massataloutta, joten menestyäkseen tuotteen tai palvelun pitää kiinnostaa suurta kohderyhmää. Kehitä, konseptoi, kasvata, kansainvälisty ja kukoista-ketju näyttäisi toimivan.