Comments on: Robin Malloy on Entrepreneurship, Property, and Markets http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/05/robin-malloy-on-entrepreneurship-property-and-markets.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:20:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: A.J. Sutter http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/05/robin-malloy-on-entrepreneurship-property-and-markets.html/comment-page-1#comment-63202 A.J. Sutter Fri, 08 May 2009 02:37:05 +0000 http://www.concurringopinions.com/?p=15193#comment-63202 Deven, it was generous of you to make the invitation, but would you mind also interpreting the result? I can't tell whether Prof. Molloy has "an understanding of the current boundaries of meaning," but this blurb seems to have transcended all such boundaries -- past, present and future. Among other things, it isn't clear whether Prof. Molloy is proposing what (a) entrepreneurs need to know/consider, or (b) what lawyers who work with entrepreneurs need to know/consider, or (c) what law profs who want to create a new "Law and ..." should invoke. As both a practicing lawyer and entrepreneur (and erstwhile VC), I'd eliminate (a) and (b). Entrepreneurs don't use interpretation theory for anything, especially for breaking boundaries -- they just break them. Market theory doesn't have any relevance to getting deals done as a lawyer, nor that much to real business (market<i>ing</i> theory is something else again). The best entrepreneurship also considers what the business can do to help <i>customers</i> or society at large, rather than making property so central. "Creativity" about property all too often means creating new forms of artificial scarcity; if Prof. Molloy instead is thinking about how to make money from "open source" type approaches or sharing stuff, he could have simply said so, instead of blowing smoke. Deven, it was generous of you to make the invitation, but would you mind also interpreting the result? I can’t tell whether Prof. Molloy has “an understanding of the current boundaries of meaning,” but this blurb seems to have transcended all such boundaries — past, present and future.

Among other things, it isn’t clear whether Prof. Molloy is proposing what (a) entrepreneurs need to know/consider, or (b) what lawyers who work with entrepreneurs need to know/consider, or (c) what law profs who want to create a new “Law and …” should invoke. As both a practicing lawyer and entrepreneur (and erstwhile VC), I’d eliminate (a) and (b). Entrepreneurs don’t use interpretation theory for anything, especially for breaking boundaries — they just break them. Market theory doesn’t have any relevance to getting deals done as a lawyer, nor that much to real business (marketing theory is something else again). The best entrepreneurship also considers what the business can do to help customers or society at large, rather than making property so central. “Creativity” about property all too often means creating new forms of artificial scarcity; if Prof. Molloy instead is thinking about how to make money from “open source” type approaches or sharing stuff, he could have simply said so, instead of blowing smoke.

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