MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Great Ideas Are Getting Harder to Find

There’s been ongoing dialogue in the past few years about whether tech innovations have plateaued. While some say that we’re still in a golden age of innovation, a 2016 headline in The Wall Street Journal declared, “The Economy’s Hidden Problem: We’re Out of Big Ideas.” The article cited slower gains in science, medicine, and technology that hold back economic growth and posited that U.S. businesses may be too risk averse.

Our latest research shows encouraging signs that new concepts have not been depleted. However, unique, original, and untapped ideas are getting more expensive to find — and that’s a problem.