"Entrepreneurs can roll back climate change, eliminate organ waitlists, end factory farming, and solve world hunger... if we let them." This documentary had a lot to say about the relationship between entrepreneurship and society. They visited four different organizations that were implementing their innovation to inquire about their everyday efforts and difficulties they face with the entrepreneurial aspect of regulations.
To begin, they started with a program that was using 3D printing and the patient's cells to create organs. The goal of this team is to eliminate the waiting list for organ transplants and all the issues that revolve around them. For example, when a patient is alerted that there is an organ available for them that means the organ has already been used and there is a chance of rejection. So, if we can just use the cells from the patient to grow their own organ in a short amount of time, then there would be no chance of rejection or the unavailability. However, the environment of these treatments are not similar to the pharmaceutical context and are facing lots of regulations and resistance from Government.
Furthermore, they visited some scientists that were engineering real animal protein without killing the animals. These scientists were able to withdraw the cells of a chicken and grow it by feeding it an array of liquid nutrients inside of their lab. They then took the meat that was created from the process and cooked it in the backyard while the same chicken walked around in the yard! They hope to eliminate the need of slaughter houses and also the inefficient land and feed allocation for our meat industry. Still, they face opposition from the dominating meat and cattle industries in our country.
Also, they featured a physicist who took charge to find a solution to our CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. He created a piece of equipment that simulates an organic tree yet captures 1000x more carbon dioxide using water, wind, and absorbent material. Once installed, it would require no energy and could capture thousands of tons of CO2 alone.
Lastly, the team traveled to California to learn about the aquaculture. These innovators were looking for a solution to our booming population requirements and the lack of land on earth. They were using kelp and mussels to de-acidify the waters and also provide a zero energy source of protein for humans. Their efforts were being hindered by more government regulations and lack of funding.
I found the aspect of regulations to be the most interesting to me in this documentary. In all the innovations that I listed above, they were just waiting to be approved or accepted to make their idea a reality. There's no doubt that we need solutions like these to solve our biggest problems. For instance, every day our population grows and we have to forfeit farm land for development; yet, entrepreneur Josh Tetrick, cannot advertise his efforts as a form of meat (even though it is) because it is engineered. This new method of meat production is a new entrant threat to the big meat and cattle industries, and therefore the government is moving slow to enable them.
In conclusion, this aspect of entrepreneurship affects society in a negative way. When entrepreneurs cannot get their innovation to the market because of regulations, then there is lost value. Society will never benefit from the value that the entrepreneur created because they missed the window of opportunity or just simply had to quit. Similarly, society affects this aspect of entrepreneurship in a negative way as well. Like the examples from the documentary, some innovations are not small and have to be acted upon in a timely manner. But, when society is negligent in doing their part, the entrepreneur is likely to fail. For instance, the aquaculture is attempting to meet a significant demand in the near future. In order to make this happen they need to be given more resources and freedom from our government. Unfortunately, a slow bureaucratic process can run an entrepreneur out of funds and time. Moreover, this discourages other entrepreneurs from attempting to create value.
Overall, regulations have a negative affect on both society and entrepreneurs in the long term. I agree with the idea of regulations to keep us safe, but they only hinder necessary progress. As scary as a free market may seem, it is the optimal solution to a lot of our problems today.
