D'Oh-bama!: If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.

Dreamers like Jonas Salk, Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, and Norman Borlaug change the world.

Sadly, others who reap the seeds of their work are more concerned with their own monetary gain.

Do you know who Bruce Roth is? Chances are some of you owe your lives to the man. Yet he's just another face in a giant multinational, compensated at some piecemeal rate billions of dollars lower than the innovation he created.

He was the first person who synthesized atorvastatin, commonly known under its' neatly packaged marketing name of Lipitor.

It is high time America encouraged the dreamers who truly create, rather than profit. That includes ensuring an educational system that can foster such individuals, and a tolerant and inclusive policy environment that can leave genius to work on its' own rather than having to rely on people who are there to leech on talent.

One could remember Tesla offering to power the entire world for free---when he was then confronted by financier J.P Morgan because "where's the money in that?". Or Alan Turing who was confronted with intolerance at every turn despite the fact that he almost single-handily ensured the survival of Britain in WW2 by cracking the Enigma Code. A fairer society with the infrastructure and technology required to birth these geniuses and to allow them to do their best work is what is required, rather than a society that placates those that merely take advantage of the talent of others.

 

You also pay for the education of your employees as part of their salary. Part of how much their salary is depends on their education.

 

Sounds like Mr. Roth should have negotiated a better employment contract if he didn't appropriately value his own worth.

Where do you think geniuses get the resources to create? The money tree? What about all the geniuses who fail? Who incurs those losses?

I work in manufacturing. Advances in technology require massive amounts of capital investment. Without profit there is no incentive for investment, period.

 

Not at all. I interpret it to mean that you didn't do it all yourself, as he said throughout the speech:

look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own.

...

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges.

...

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

 

No, sounds like Big Pharma shouldn't have competing research centers where researchers are forced to slave under the implied threat that their life's work will never be accomplished because nobody other than a bunch of profit-mongers who at any given time are more concerned with litigation and marketing than actual research, went out and bought the infrastructure required (and only because the government went head over heels with creating monopoly markets, a good educational system that can turn out talented researchers, and tax credits, for the purpose of helping them out...a debt Big Pharma does not pay so very well---as demonstrated in this case; http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14392.)

Merck got caught. God knows who hasn't.

 

Men and women with better motives abound. I advise you to read the biography of Jonas Salk. It is a heartwarming story, and one that directly contradicts the premise that has been built into you that money is the only thing that moves people.

 

This is total bull****. Completely false and confirms my interpretation.

 

No one gives a **** about chemists and Charles Hall is a much better example. No one has heard of him either, made a much larger impact, and died filthy freaking rich.

 

So you don't believe Steve Jobs needed help to be successful? You don't think teachers influenced his life? You don't think roads benefited him at all? You don't think his parents made any difference whatsoever? You think the iPod would have been phenomenally successful without musicians, radio, etc? You think the iPad would have been successful without the internet or app developers? If he was born 1000 years ago in the middle of Africa, he would have been just as succesful?

 

I find that a sad reflection on the society we live in.

 

Whether he did or didn't would be irrelevant. I have no desire to speculate on what someones life would be like in an alternate reality. Especially someone I didn't know.

 

Except that's not what you said -you said it's "total bull****", meaning it's conclusively false. I assume you have some evidence that successful people were not influenced by anyone else's actions at any point in their lives?

 

Every business needs support. From angels, investors, the community, someone giving you a break on supply costs, a loan from a bank, free tools or services.

That's just the reality. I guess if you start a business and you already have a million dollars in your checking account, then maybe you are right. I don't know many business owners like that, I guess you do.

 

Again, none of these things are relevant since that is not my interpretation of what he said.

Your interpretation renders the statements utterly meaningless.

 

The implication is that those supporters have not been duly compensated, and therefore Obama is entitled to another pound of flesh (with no limit really).

 

Or convince a venture capital firm like Bain to risk a million dollars on you?

 

I don't think you know the degree to which the government will kowtow to people and businesses with capital, and the little they get back. In America, it's actually quite stunning how people who hold onto capital get so well-compensated while people who drive change, and ideas, scarcely are.

It's a societal problem, and it's one youth are picking up on. Every potential game-changing engineer or scientist who is going to Wall Street instead is a sad acknowledgement of what is being prioritized in this society.

 

Yeah these guys are broke as a joke

 

Scarcely, Casey, is the operative word in this case. Internet tech is a wonderful exception, and only because capital-holders love it.

Let's not pretend that on average, it doesn't make a whole lot more sense for a brilliant young student to try to ferret their way into the highest halls of corporate law firms, or Wall Street banks, rather than devoting their lives to research that could save lives, rather than profit off them.