Great Bill Gates Quote

Says Bill:

One thing I want to understand better is to what degree innovation that improves the human condition is reflected in economic figures.

Let’s say that someone invents a new bug spray that stops mosquitoes from biting people and is super cheap.

Or let’s say someone comes up with a way to replace hearts for people over 80 that enables them to live longer but that costs a lot of money.

I think that innovation does generally map to economic growth over time. But taking a particular innovation and quantifying its direct economic impact is hard.

For example I believe that because the Internet lets people find a lot more information a lot more easily and quickly, it is a much bigger benefit than the economic figures show.

So when people say middle class salaries have not gone up much I think that the “basket of goods” approach to measuring improvement inherently understates how much better life is now than it was in the past.