At Cato: Discussion of movie "They Say It Can't Be Done"

On October 26, 2020 an online discussion of the movie "They Say it Can't Be Done" took place with Chelsea Follett of Cato, moderator, Patrick Reasonover, the presenter and the movie's lead producer, and Johan Norberg of Cato, commentator.  

I had not seen the movie; but the theme of it is well-trod territory among innovators who try to break into a sales market dominated by big corporations with overwhelming market-share monopoly, agonizing over their lot.  The new kids on the block complain its too expensive for the little guy to fight for the right to compete with the establishment, who, after all, get to set the rules for entry into a field, for which they lay claim to an exclusionary privilege, so as to maintain dominance.

One would think that venture capitalists would come to the neophyte innovators' aid.  But while important in the marketing of new products and services, these wealthy investors are reluctant to spend vast sums of money tied up in legal drawn-out battles over copyright infringement charges by the big boys with plenty of lawyers and an abundance of cash from their profits in their market line vs. a cash-strapped new product entrepreneur.

I came across an idea in the Economist recently: many university endowments are investing in Wall-Street.  Maybe, they might allocate some of their funds for start-ups. Surely, they know the history of innovators "borrowing" ideas from those already the known leaders in a field.

The situation is becoming dire: Trump has sided with American big business in their desire to hide or lock up their designs of products they are currently selling so as no other country's corporations could learn of their processes and methods and formulas.  Contrast that position to that of IBM early-on in the computer field, who shared their code as per their agreement with the sponsoring federal government.

Anyway, today's trade war with China is aimed to assure that China will not become competitive with American companies, just so long as the universities don't let on they have the knowledge of how the big guys' products are made, too.