It may not always be profitable at first for businesses to be online, but it is certainly going to be unprofitable not to be online.
Esther DysonRead
The nature of business and government has been to build a surplus and self-perpetuate, but the Internet fosters and rewards smaller, more fluid organizations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The Internet encourages smaller and more flexible organizations over traditional large businesses and governments.
This quote by Esther Dyson highlights the fundamental shift that the Internet has brought about in the landscape of business and governance. Whereas traditional entities tend to focus on creating surplus and maintaining their own continuity, the digital age promotes smaller, agile organizations that can adapt quickly and effectively to changes, fostering innovation and responsiveness rather than stagnation.
Themes
InternetBusinessOrganizationInnovationAgility
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about modern entrepreneurship, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of agility in business.
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All quotes βEncryption...is a powerful defensive weapon for free people. It offers a technical guarantee of privacy, regardless of who is running the government... It's hard to think of a more powerful, less dangerous tool for liberty.
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Part of the problem is when we bring in a new technology we expect it to be perfect in a way that we don't expect the world that we're familiar with to be perfect.
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