Economist: “In “The Power Law”, Sebastian Mallaby acknowledges some of the industry’s shortcomings, most notably its shocking lack of diversity. But he zealously defends the overall achievements of the VC industry, which has funded many of the modern world’s most useful inventions (search engines, smartphones, vaccines), disrupted cosy monopolies and generated eye-popping wealth. He even claims that VCs have emerged as a “third great institution of modern capitalism”, combining the organisational strengths of companies with the flexibility of markets. Little surprise that the VC model has now gone global, with particularly striking results in China.”
Shekhar Gupta: “Politics of grievance, we said, had now been replaced by the politics of aspiration. What else could a predominantly young India ask the Gods for? Growth had been brilliant the preceding years, and India was poised to encash its demographic dividend. This was a sentiment that spoke out in the majority given to Narendra Modi in 2014. The young Indians, still riding a wave of optimism, and bitter with UPA-2, bought into his promise of growth, jobs, prosperity. They weren’t just voting against Pakistan, or a new republic where Muslims were to be ‘others’ and ‘allowed to live’ only if they knew their place. Year on year after that, we’ve gone backwards into the angry past…The fate of nations and civilisations, however, isn’t determined by who wins an election or two. It’s defined by what its people, especially its young people, are thinking. Aspirations for the future or moaning over the past?”
George Will: “Today’s Federal Reserve illustrates this axiom: When a government entity cannot, or would rather not, adequately perform its primary function, or when it feels that its primary function is insufficiently grand, the agency will expand its mission, thereby distracting attention from its core inadequacy.”
