Lester Thurow’s Rules for Brand U Wealth

Rule #1: No one ever becomes very rich by saving money.

Rule #2: Sometimes successful businesses have to cannibalize themselves to save themselves.

Rule #3: Two routes other than radical technological change can lead to high-growth, high-rate-of-return opportunities: sociological disequilibriums and development of disequilibriums.

Rule #4: Making capitalism work in a deflationary environment is much harder than making it work in an inflationary environment.

Rule #5: There are no institutional substitutes for individual entrepreneurial change agents.

Rule #6: No society that values order above all else will be creative; but without some degree of order creativity disappears.

Rule #7: A successful knowledge-based economy requires large public investments in education, infrastructure, and research and development.

Rule #8: The biggest unknown for the individual in a knowledge-based economy is how to have a career in a system where there are no careers.[i]

[i] Thurow, Lester, “Building Wealth,” The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1999, pp. 57-63.

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