Are the heartbeat of America.

This is why we triumph. People come up with concepts, products, they innovate...

Never underestimate execution. Ideas are nothing without execution.

But the idea comes first.

The problem is America does its best to squeeze out the creativity of its populace. Via education. Teaching to the book.

It did not used to be this way in the sixties. In the era of individuality school was not rote, projects were limit-testing. You were always pushed to come up with something new.

Not anymore.

Now life has gotten harder, as a result of income inequality. And therefore parents and children are focused on jobs. They don't want to fall behind. They want to make a good living. So they color within the lines to try and succeed.

You know where they do this best?

Japan.

Education is very narrow. You listen to the teacher and grind for the test. Being creative, anything that can't be quantified? That's excised, close to completely.

This is the heartbeat of the U.S. New ideas. Inventions. Creativity. It's our culture.

Or it has been anyway.

But unlike the let your freak flag fly individuality of the sixties, today it's all groupthink, getting along. Look at politics. You stick with the party, otherwise you're ostracized.

Now when it comes to new ideas, starting companies from scratch...

Most of them don't come from the highly educated, those who've gone to an Ivy League school and gotten an MBA... Once again, the creativity has been squeezed right out of them. The dirty little secret of an MBA today is it's mostly about building relationships, that will pay off down the road. As for learning something... Oftentimes you're studying old cases that will tell you how it was done, but breaking the rules, doing something new? You're trained within a bubble. Whereas those not restricted by this education start with a blank slate. They're true believers. They start their business and to hell with the usual suspects.

Although historically, once a business reaches critical mass, they bring in the MBAs, the bean counters, and oftentimes the business falters, because there's no innovation.

We see this in the major labels... They used to be run by entrepreneurs, who oftentimes started their own labels. Now most of the people there have never had skin in the game, have never put their own money on the line, where you can lose it or win big. That sharpens the senses. But if you're being paid a salary and reporting to the board and it's a public company...

No wonder the labels are moribund.

Mitch Miller was in control of A&R at Columbia Records, he hated rock, and therefore at first Columbia missed it.

The old always hates the new.

Now in the sixties, the old label heads realized they were out of touch and hired what came to be known as "house hippies." People without portfolio who were glued to the street.

But now, the Boomers and Gen-X'ers who run these companies think they know better than the younger generations.

Or they try to game the system. Once upon a time it was street teams, now it's leverage at DSPs and... Creativity? That's out the window.

Even the acts themselves...

It seems to be completely forgotten that the Beatles released the so-called "White Album" as a reaction to overdone album covers. This was a huge risk. Didn't the cover announce who you were, didn't good graphics help to sell an album? The Beatles were saying they weren't inured to the past, they were taking a risk. Where's the big risk today?

Every company needs new ideas. Or it dies. Period. No corporation lasts forever.

But when someone comes up with a new idea it's run by the brass, the numbers are calculated... And then the company usually says no. It's too big a risk. But all these companies were built on risk.

As for new ideas...

Live Nation... Got to give Michael Rapino props. Come up with a new idea and he says yes. He gives you the money. Everyone thinks that Live Nation wins because of the Ticketmaster monopoly. Now TM helps, but it's Live Nation which allows its employees to take risks. And this continues to pay dividends. Do all of them work out? If you're looking for a batting average of 1000%, don't even start.

Wasn't it Live Nation that built a temporary stadium for Adele in Munich?

I don't want to make this about Live Nation, but too many other companies in music are positively sclerotic. They're doing it little different from the way they always have. To much less success by the way.

They're shooting for the moon with every release. If it can't be multi-platinum soon, they don't even invest, they believe the opportunity cost is too high. But in the old days, the Mo and Joe Warner Bros. would sign stuff that seemed completely left field. And some hit.

That's how you do it.

No one is doing it that way anymore.

Yes, music is a mature business, but the music itself never is.

This is why the charts are not populated by music school graduates. They can play the notes, but they can't come up with the IDEAS!

We've got to foster creativity in our young, not beat it out of them.

Hell, any time the youngsters start doing something new the oldsters do their best to shut it down. All the innovation happens on the internet, but parents keep saying their children should get off the damn phone!

Of course there are perils in screen addiction. But no one ever focuses on the benefits of internet usage.

China may eat our lunch in AI by doing it differently. It owns electric cars and if it weren't for tariffs, the Big Three would be decimated nearly overnight. All because the Chinese government invested in ideas. Gave incentives. So there were many electric car startups.

What do we have in America?

A shutting down of innovation. A cutting of research. Investment in fossil fuels.

Stay down this path and America will become a second class country.

Our nation was based on fluidity, the American Dream. You could be a poor nobody and become rich. But today the rich never want to lose their status. They want institutionalized wealth, which is detrimental to our society.

Now a few weeks back I read this article that I can't get out of my head. It defines the issue:

"Raising Cane's Grew From an Idea a College Professor Hated - No one believed in Todd Graves' vision for a restaurant at first. Raising Cane's is the third largest chicken chain in the US by sales and growing fast":

https://apple.news/A451et58gSrirIZ1gdeASDg

I learned all this from reading. Which sparks ideas.
Try it.


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