Questions about economics & the Book

Can I make money reading this book?

Nope. No book will make money for you. Understanding how companies and economies work may make you a better investor.

What is the goal of this book?

The Goal of this book is to put forth an investable hypothesis that the economy is a normal complex adaptive system working as an extension of evolution.

Will the stock market go up or down? (hint: this is a useless question)

The stock market will go up and down. Over time companies and the economy will produce ever-increasing amounts of value.

Why was this book written?

The Nature of Value was written to deeply explore the questions: What is the economy? How does the economy work? Why does the economy do what it does? Where is it all heading?

What was the process to write this book?

Constantly seek truth by asking why. This involved expanding and re-writing the book 5 times.

What is the big idea in this book?

The economy is an extension of evolution.

Who will get the most out of this book?

The slow and patient reader with a deep intellectual curiosity.

 

Questions for the author

What inspired you to write your first book?

I wanted to understand how things worked. Writings provides a disciplined discovery process which can be shared and more importantly critiqued.

Do you have a specific writing style?

My writing style varies depending on the audience and project. To keep it short, The Nature of Value is written in a concise, dense and clinical form. A more entertaining form involving narrative etc. would have required 3-5 times more length or limited treatment of the economic process from smallet unit of innovation to economic propensities in the context of evolution.

What is your background?

I am trained as an Anthropologist, have worked as Chief Analyst for a multi-disciplinary deep future science institute, successful investor, quantitative analyst and software entrepreneur.

How did you come up with the title?

After four years it just seemed to make sense. The book is about getting to the essence of how economics work. The ecology optimizes for life, the economy optimizes for value, that is its nature.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Constantly realizing the answers needed probing, simplification and clarity.