In this episode we interview Robert H. Frank, Professor emeritus of Management and Professor emeritus of Economics at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. For more than a decade, his “Economic View” column appeared monthly in The New York Times. 

Part one of our conversation with Robert focuses a central idea laid out in his ground-breaking book, The Winner-Take-All Society. 

His first argument is that with an increasingly connected world, the gains of excellence and success are accruing increasingly to those who are the “best” in the field on a global level. This phenomenon is double edged. On the one hand, it means that consumers and communities have access to some of the world’s best products, ideas and services, irrespective of geography. When one thinks of artistic expression, for example, and how unknown artists can reach incredible levels of fame and economic success through platforms like YouTube, one can see how this trend may be democratizing. On the other hand, when we consider how a few tech giants and social media platforms have some to dominate how services are provided, from Amazon to Facebook, we see how this Winner-Take-All dynamic concentrates power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands. 

The second part of this argument – in effect how this can lead to what he calls The Darwin Economy – is laid out in Part Two of the interview, and will be released in two weeks’ time.