Ingvar Kamprad, arranged to get his furniture made in Communist Poland for half of what it
would cost him in Sweden... Would we so revere risk-taking if we realised that the people who are
supposedly taking bold risks in the cause of entrepreneurship are actually doing no such
thing?
Only Gladwell could:
1. Be dazzled by the innovation of something as ordinary as wage arbitrage, and yet
2. Think that opening a factory in a communist country is not an example of "risk taking".
Long after he became wealthy, he would take the bus to his offices in midtown, and the train out to
his summer house on Long Island.
Surely a man of the people would take public transit to his mansion!
I agree with you on that. The Ikea anecdote was really not well fleshed out at all. Not only does it not really come inline with the essay, but it's barely explained and touted throughout the paper as a name-drop.
I also thought the detail that he rode his bike around the Hamptons as a testament to his thrift was dubious. So someone who buys a house in the Hamptons is thrifty because he rides a bike? Could it be that he's biking as some sort of recreation perhaps? Big loss only driving the Lexus in a and out of the area.
Only Gladwell could:
1. Be dazzled by the innovation of something as ordinary as wage arbitrage, and yet
2. Think that opening a factory in a communist country is not an example of "risk taking".
Long after he became wealthy, he would take the bus to his offices in midtown, and the train out to his summer house on Long Island.
Surely a man of the people would take public transit to his mansion!