Heres the link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-june-7-2012-edward-conard

The piece is kind of long, it is an interview with Edward Conard about his book “Unintended Consequences”.  It is the second, third and fourth segments of the episode and probably counts for about 40 minutes of the show all up.

It touches on motivation with Edward Conard pushing the idea of financial reward driving innovation and John Stewart pointing to the main motivator being something else.  At one point in the interview Edward Conard says how for years all these MBA students worked really hard to get the best grades for a 1 in 100 shot at a job with a company like Bain Capital, but then after the tech boom how they struggled to recruit these same type of students because they were all going to have a go at the tech industry because of the potential for reward.

I found it interesting because I was thinking my next post would be about motivation and it plays into that topic nicely. (I think I’ll still write about that soon).

If I think about the big tech successes… what drove them? I can’t think of one that was founded and driven by an MBA who thought they’d make a lot of money out of it.  I can only think of successes founded by people who were passionate about what they were doing and had ideas about how things could be done differently.  The MBAs and money men may have jumped on later, be they didn’t start or drive it.  You can look at the finance industry as driving innovation or parasitizing it depending on your perspective.  I would argue that money has not been the driving motivation of a single major beneficial innovation in our society.

The interview also looks at other aspects of the financial system and overall there are some great contrasting view points expressed strongly but amicably.