Cross-Fertilization and Entrepreneurial Creativity

Ed Lazear’s jack-of-all-trades model, in which people with diverse skills and experience are more likely than specialists to become entrepreneurs, emphasizes the value of cross-fertilization. Ideas from one “knowledge domain” may be useful in another.

Here’s a good example (via Mike Cook): a Missouri transportation engineer with a farming background has developed a new snowplow, capable of clearing multiple lanes at once, modeled after a common piece of farm equipment.

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