Regulation As Sport; Regulation As Political Tool

One thing that makes me skeptical about the EU long term is the way they seem to view regulation not as an unfortunate necessity, but as an exciting project.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) October 12, 2018

I was pleased to see the above tweet by Paul Graham. I don’t know Paul at all. I respect what he has done with Y Combinator and other efforts in and around entrepreneurship. I hope that he and other people like him are quickly coming to the realization that the hearts and minds of regulators isn’t in the best interest of people, but in the best interest of the regulators.

His tweet is exactly why you got Brexit.  It’s not because of racism or nationalism.  It’s also one reason Trump was elected president.  Aggressive US regulators killed off whole sections of the American economy dooming people. Not only that, but parts of the government were weaponized to attack people that didn’t agree with it. It’s still happening.  The city of LA is going to require if contractors have NRA ties.  That’s called fascism folks whether you agree with the NRA or not.  Should they require ties to all non-profit organizations?

I just got finished reading Satya Nadella’s book “Hit Refresh”.  It’s about his battle for the soul of Microsoft.  It’s interesting reading.  Very hard to change the culture of a giant like Microsoft.  Nadella is using similar techniques that Raman Chadha’s Junto Institute uses to do it.  Nadella has some very strong opinions about the capabilities of technology to influence our lives for good.  I agree.  I love how he talks about entrepreneurship in the book as a means to elevating the standards of living of people world wide.

He’s right.

The problem is public policy.  It often stands in the way.  If not the policy, it’s the people enacting the policy.  At the H2 Conference I was just at I was speaking with someone who does business in Dubai.  They told me that in Abu Dhabi if you fail that you are likely to go to prison.  That sort of attitude and policy isn’t going to engender a spirit of entrepreneurship.

I realize the Abu Dhabi example is extreme but how far away is it from a city like Chicago that has a thicket of regulations which limit what businesspeople can do?

If we want entrepreneurship to flourish, we cannot engineer it like a puppet master.  What we have to do is have the patience not to regulate, not to control, but to take a step back and let the serendipity of randomness take over.  Humans are hard wired to find gains from trade.  Let our instincts take control and while the path to prosperity might be jagged and uncentered, it will happen.  It will happen faster and better than if the regulators are in control.