Dumb and Dumber 2.0: In his recent book, “The Venturesome Economy,” the Columbia University business professor Amar Bhidé offers a perspective on American innovation and prosperity that is remarkably optimistic, given the temper of the times. Among his data-driven findings: American consumers have long shown an “exceptional willingness” to buy, for instance, technology products before their utility is clear. Such “venturesome consumers” help spur companies and entrepreneurs to take the risks that lead to innovation because they know there is a market willing to take a roughly analogous risk that the next new thing will turn out to have been worth buying. “It isn’t even just a few leading-edge users,” Bhidé told me. “The venturesomeness is much more broad-based.”
Consumers seem risk-averse and hunkered down at the moment, and spending on the nonutilitarian is getting a bad reputation.
