Articles by Bret Swanson 
Bret Swanson is president of Entropy Economics, a research firm focused on technology and the global economy, and of Entropy Capital, a venture firm that invests in early-stage technology companies. For eight years he advised technology investors as executive editor of the Gilder Technology Report and later was a senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation. Today Swanson presents his “exaflood” research across the globe, writes a column for Forbes, and contributes to the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal on topics ranging from communications bandwidth to monetary policy. He studies innovation, globalization, China, Internet traffic, information theory, the stock market, and entrepreneurial economics. He is guided by the Laws of Say, Metcalfe, and Moore, the Theorem of Shannon, and the Curve of Laffer. His most pioneering and speculative research, however, concerns forces even more powerful and enigmatic — his four children nine and under.
Very happy to see the discussion over The Wall Street Journal‘s Google/net neutrality story. Always good to see holes poked and the truth set free. But let’s not allow the eruptions, backlashes, recriminations, and “debunkings” — This topic has been debunked. End of story. Over. Sit down! – obscure the still-fundamental issues. This is a terrific starting [...]
Big news in these parts. The celebrated openness of the Internet — network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic — is quietly losing powerful defenders. Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, [...]
See my comparison of the state of technology in 2008 versus 1992, during the last Democratic presidential transition. In mid-2008, the four-gigabyte (or 4,096 megabytes) flash memory chip in an iPod Nano cost $25. Late in 2008, four-gigabyte flash cards and USB drives are selling for $14.99. But back in 1992, four gigabytes of flash [...]
The venerable Economist magazine has made a hash of my research on the growth of the Internet, which examines the rich media technologies now flooding onto the Web and projects Internet traffic over the coming decade. This “exaflood” of new applications and services represents a bounty of new entertainment, education, and business applications that can drive productivity [...]
About 10 days ago I gave a presentation to a D.C. business group on “Innovation: The End? Or a New Beginning?” We got into a discussion of high-end immigration and were in general agreement that we should grant easy green cards to all STEM PhDs educated in the U.S., among other enticements to smart immigrants. [...]
My friend Louisa Gilder’s brand new book The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn arrived in the mail from Amazon today. Matt Ridley, author of Genome, says: Louisa Gilder disentangles the story of entanglement with such narrative panache, such poetic verve, and such metaphysical precision that for a moment I almost thought I understood quantum mechanics. [...]
See my take on the election and the prospects for capitalism in today’s Wall Street Journal: If Barack Obama ran for president by calling for a heavier hand of government, he also won by running one of the most entrepreneurial campaigns in history. Will he now grasp the lesson his campaign offers as he crafts [...]
Coincident with the news of a few days ago that Microsoft is embracing the Web even for its longtime PC-centric OS and apps, The Economist has a big special report on “cloud computing,” including articles on: “The Evolution of Data Centres“ “Software as a Service“ “Connecting to the Cloud“ “The Economics of the Cloud“ The [...]
Forbes has produced a scintillating special report on the market crash and what comes next. Steve Forbes tells “How Capitalism Will Save Us.” In “Curbing Washington’s Growing Power” economist David Malpass explains the policy mistakes that led here and describes the key threats that could make it worse. Rich Karlgaard compares today’s market to the [...]
Apologies for the non-technology post, but since the only topics of conversation these days are Wall Street, credit default swaps, and Putin’s flights over Alaska, I thought I’d post my review of Dave Smick’s new book The World is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy…the Mortgage Crisis Was Only the Beginning. <div style=”100%”><a href=”http://www.scribd.com/doc/6320801/Not-So-Flat-After-All-Forbescom-092908-by-Bret-Swanson”>”Not [...]