You mean, people from rich families can afford to take more risks than those from non-rich families?
Mind-blowing.
That’s only the data. The conclusion was about how we can support potential but not rich inventors.
I started with inmotionhosting.com . Looking them up, their plans currently start at $6/month, which is on a shared server. I scaled up hosting later.
Makes sense that it would be easier for invention support to derive from wealthier families; they have more resources. However, the inventors still need to invent. That takes a certain type of mindset. Fortunately, technology and social media have dramatically reduced the barrier to entry (cost) for many forms of invention.
The wealthy will naturally have an advantage, but far more have realistic access today than ever before.
Patents are super expensive. My husband has declined to renew a couple of his for this reason.
Chetty’s research is getting repetitive. I guess it is no surprise that people of low SES would be at a disadvantage for any metric we look at.
I think some of the posters talking about the rich being more able to take career risks didn’t take the time to read the study.I found this a key takeaway of the study:
“This finding reinforces the view that factors that affect children before they enter the labor market,such as childhood environment and exposure to innovation, drive much of the gaps in innovation we uncovered.”
My engineer dad has several patents and just keeps on going. He’s 95. His mind is always churning. He is literally unhappy without a new project to work on. Not everything is “brand new” but to get a patent you need to have something that has a new element or technique. Not easy to prove that.
We kids grew up with that mindset–we spend a lot of time tinkering with stuff and have fun making things to solve everyday problems. Maybe it’s in the DNA. Maybe it’s learning to look at objects and know you have the ability to improve on it. It’s a challenge and puzzle.
Some I’ve wanted to patent but it is an expensive process and I’m not sure it would be worth it.
And marketing can be very expensive or at the very least time consuming.
I personally think that it’s personal drive that’s needed to forward innovation. I know people come up with great ideas all the time but keep it under their hats. My dad always encourages us to TRY marketing something.
If it fails, so what? If you don’t bother to get it in front of the public you’ll never know.
So fear of failure is a biggie. and if you are in the business of creating something new–there are going to be failures…of design, marketing, money. The confidence and ability to brush off the nay-sayers is important.
“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.”–Thomas Edison
His lament right now is how hard it is to get a decent prototype of something at a decent price to even try marketing. He’s talked to China–great price if you want 10,000 of something!
My university is rather picky about the patent applications that it files for the faculty, because of the expense. When the patent rules were “first to discover,” delay did not prevent getting a patent. Now that the patent goes to the “first to file,” the delay can cost people the patent (and also cost the potential royalties to the public university, and to the state).
Can someone give a ballpark amount on the cost of getting a patent?
@doschicos – it can be $15k to $30k for a simple patent. Of course, that’s just for the patent itself. The real value comes in defending the patent against infringers and those costs can be huge (of course, winning there reaps huge rewards). What you really want to do is license the patent to others and/or force larger companies to buy you and your patents (have an IP war chest).
In terms of control variables, 8th grade math scores have a lot more explanatory power than 3rd grade math scores. The authors attribute this to smart, but low income students falling farther behind as they go through more years of school. However, it seems equally plausible that those 3rd grade math scores were never an accurate measure of innate ability to begin with. 3rd grade math tests may measure mainly memorization skills and may not be a good measure of the innate ability to succeed in higher level math.
@doschicos --My dad’s patents probably range from 800 to 1500. He does much of the research himself, does most drawings himself and does not involve lawyers. He’s done pretty well defending his work. But it is time-consuming. He uses provisional patent applications which let him have a year to work on an actual application to decide whether to pursue it. Now that he’s elderly he gets “express” service.