Money tends to be a motivating factor. We see this time and time again, and it is shown quite well in the 1991 film "Other People's Money." One particularly interesting aspect of entrepreneurship that this film showcases the best is the idea of value, and the value we collectively place on different things.
Throughout the film, Larry the liquidator's goal is to convince the wire and cable company that they are worth more liquidated than they are as a functioning company. He starts with the big name board members, but when that fails, he filters down to the every day shareholders of the company in an effort to persuade them to let him use his controlling interest in the company to sell off it's assets so that everyone can walk away with at least a little bit of money. This is interesting because so often we think about entrepreneurship in its converse form, which is trying to persuade people that something is worth more than they think it is worth. I was not expecting to come face to face with the idea that often times both are needed if a successful business is to be made.
I say this because when we attempt to increase the value of what we have, we often try to simultaneously devalue what someone else is offering. The character of Larry in this film is an extreme example of this, however the concept still stands. His business and the way he was an entrepreneur was to devalue others. While this could raise some ethical or moral concerns, in the end we see that he won. This story had a happy ending, but sometimes they don't. Whether or not happy endings occur are entirely resultant on the value that is placed in a good or service.
This aspect hugely impacts society. We as a society are so impacted by this aspect of value because we are the ones giving or taking value away. Even in our earliest examples in class of Adele and her apples, we see that her ability to function as an entrepreneur is limited by the perceived value of those in her surrounding community. Her apples could cure cancer, but if they don't taste very good and none of her neighbors have cancer, then she will soon be out of business because no one values her apples. Therefore, the value of anything is really value that is intimately tied to society.
This doesn't mean that value is set in stone, however. Just like how Larry was able to sway the shareholders and convince them that the value of the company was tanking, we as a society can be swayed. Due to the fickle nature of humans, society really supports this idea of changing value. A perfect example of this is the pet rock that we discussed in class. A rock should have a stable, linear value, because it is a rock. But by changing a little bit of the presentation of the rock, an entrepreneur was able to vastly increase it's perceived value. Not because the rock changed at all. It was still just a rock. What changed was their ability to make the rock seem as if it had more value than it started out with.
This leads us to how society and value interact. Due to the close nature in which value and society operate, we can only come to the conclusion that society and value are forever intertwined. This leads to constant interaction between the consumer (society) and the entrepreneur. Every day we see advertisements and marketing from countless people who all want to sell something. You can hardly watch a YouTube video without having to sit through two ads for some product they hope you buy. Thus we see that the entrepreneur will constantly be in a battle of attempting to convince society that his product or idea is the best and will add utility to their lives. It is not a negative struggle however. In this way we are able to receive the innovation that only comes from a constant battle to be on top. This in turn causes value to go up, meaning that prices can be increased in a way which lets different costs be chosen, so that the process can start anew and the engine of entrepreneurship can be continued.
