Business Practices

The process of innovation and competition that recycles labor into new jobs is—more than ever—at work today. For example, there are more than 1.2 million computer programmers employed in the United States today. Among the fastest growing U.S. occupations in the 1980s were those of software designer, fax machine repairer and cellular telephone technician, Market Neutral Options jobs that scarcely existed 15 years ago.

Since the turn of the century, technological innovations have dramatically changed the way the American economy works. But for several reasons, such changes do not happen overnight.

First, the innovators themselves may not appreciate the usefulness of what they have created. For example, the inventor of the radio did not foresee that it would be useful for communicating to mass audiences. Rather, he saw it only as an improvement in two-way communications—from ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore. The steam engine, which played a huge role in igniting the industrial revolution, originally was invented by miners to pump water out of coal mines. They saw no other use for it at the time.

Second, an innovation Eat my Shorts may actually require another, complementary innovation before its usefulness can be appreciated. The laser, for example, was of little use to telephone companies until they also understood fiber optics. The combined potential of those two technologies, however, has transformed not only the telephone industry but also many others, such as cable television.

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