social welfare research institute - Boston College

Market-Conscious, Knowledge-Based Accumulation
In this section we elaborate the distinctive qualities that the respondents attribute
to how they conduct their high-tech business activity, in particular their attentiveness to
an ever-changing market sovereignty and to the preeminence of human capital over
physical capital. Our respondents are self-made, having derived virtually every penny of
their wealth from involvement in the new economy as high-tech entrepreneurs or as
upper-level executives with substantial equity ownership in a high-tech business. Those
who cited investments as a substantial source of their current wealth were quick to add
that these investments derived from the income they received when they sold all or part
of their high-tech assets and diversified their portfolios. In addition, most of those we
interviewed had become very wealthy—at least on paper—at a relatively young age and
often in a very short time. Finally, few ever anticipated in college that their major would
be a stepping stone to a formidable business career. These features, as well as the
intensity and velocity of their business activity, combine to etch into their consciousness
the factors that have generated their affluence. Among these factors, the respondents
identified three strictures, which must be heeded:
1. to respond to a consumer market in which product demand is for processes
rather than for discrete products and which has a pent-up demand for
innovative process-based products;
2. to acquire and apply intellectual capital as the most crucial force of
production;
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