Because the process of innovation often relies heavily on the combining and recombining of previous innovations, the broader and deeper the pool of accessible ideas and individuals, the more opportunities there are for innovation.
Erik BrynjolfssonThe kind of job where you come in and work 9 to 5, and where someone tells you what to do all day is becoming scarcer and scarcer.
Erik BrynjolfssonNow comes the second machine age. Computers and other digital advances are doing for mental power - the ability to use our brains to understand and shape our environments-what the steam engine and its descendants did for muscle power.
Erik BrynjolfssonTechnology has made it easier for different firms to coordinate their activities with one another, and they don't have to be part of one company. They can get the benefits of scale without the inertia of scale.
Erik BrynjolfssonBefore information age, living standards basically were flat. Since then, they've been growing 2 percent a year were about 30 times richer. So technology, machines is really, you know, arguably the most important thing that's happened to humanity in terms of our living standards. You could look to the introduction of digital computers in the 1950s.
Erik Brynjolfsson