Intellectual Venture Capitalists: An Emerging Breed of Knowledge Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Industrial culture focuses mainly on the production of ‘things' – of static objects. Knowledge, on the other hand, is constantly in flux, like a flowing stream. Conventional industrial notions lead policy makers to believe that the addition of a knowledge-based industry to an existing industrial base makes a knowledge economy. This is not the case. Pieces of knowledge, purchased like objects, do not make a knowledge economy. What is missed in such perceptions is the importance of managing and synthesizing knowledge and of conducting conventional business in innovative ways. Capitalizing the knowledge economy requires an entirely new way of viewing the economic landscape. An emerging breed of knowledge entrepreneurs – intellectual venture capitalists – is setting the scene for an entrepreneurial revolution that will transform that landscape.