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A penetrating dissection of technological
success and failure since 1945, Profits of Science
provides an insightful, down-to-earth look at what we have
learned since World War II about the management of technology.
What happens when science marries money?
Robert Teitelman focuses on the interaction of business
with the key frontier technologies of our era: television,
microelectronics and computers, pharmaceuticals, wartime
radar, and biotechnology. To shed light on broad trends
in economic and scientific thought and the popular business
culture, Teitelman looks at specific industries, examining
how did quantum physics and solid-state electronics interact
in the 1950s? Why did the television-set business evolve
so differently from the semiconductor business?
Profits of Science sketches out a broad
scheme for understanding why technologies wax and wane,
and why economies shift over time from a belief in the large
corporation to a faith in the small. In particular, Teitelman
stresses the role that money -- from corporations, government,
venture capital, public markets -- plays in shaping the
way technologies are exploited. His notion of a closing
gap between science and technology that fuels innovation
and favors entrepreneurial firms over the giant corporation
helps to explain some of the seeming paradoxes of current
economic life. What creates fertile ground for innovation:
size or speed? Have economies of scale been banished in
the information age? What role do regulation, market barriers,
and taxation play in the battle between large, established
companies and small, insurgent enterprises?
The book is filled with fascinating portraits
of critical figures in the science, engineering, and business
communities -- everyone from David Sarnoff to Steve Jobs
-- and engrossing accounts of such esoteric material as
quantum physics, molecular biology, and corporate finance.
In our continuing quest to master the R&D
process and to generate prosperity through technological
innovation, amid all the talk about "changing the system"
to compete better internationally, this examination of the
evolution of our technological economy provides invaluable
guideposts for future action.
Robert Teitelman, senior editor at Institutional
Investor magazine, is the author of Gene Dreams: Wall
Street, Academia, and the Rise of Biotechnology.
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