It's very hard for individual inventors to get paid. For the same reason that private equity is valuable - broadly, that's a good thing - in the case of patents, many that own them aren't in a good position to take the next step.
Nathan MyhrvoldCrazy ideas sometimes work, and the technological society that we have is built on a foundation of those crazy ideas that work.
Nathan MyhrvoldWhat you do on a dinosaur expedition is you hike and look at the ground. You find bones sticking out of the dirt and, once you see something, you dig.
Nathan MyhrvoldEconomists want their discipline to be a science, and they have nailed down a few precepts, but many of their debates are still clouded by ideology.
Nathan Myhrvold