[extropy-chat] Internal Idea Futures market

[Robin Hanson]

At 03:59 PM 3/26/2006, Hal Finney wrote:
>The New York Times has an article today about a company which is
>running an internal Idea Futures market to identify new product and
>market opportunities:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/business/yourmoney/26mgmt.html
>
> > ... company's internal market, ... Each stock comes with a detailed
> > description ...  and begins trading at a price of $10. Every employee
> > gets $10,000 in "opinion money" to allocate among the offerings, and
> > employees signal their enthusiasm by investing in a stock and, better
> > yet, volunteering to work on the project. Volunteers share in the
> > proceeds, in the form of real money, if the stock becomes a product or
> > delivers savings.

Very intriguing, but frustratingly vague as well.   This doesn't seem to be
a conditional market, so even if you support a great idea, if others don't
support it too you will lose your investment.


Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323