Smartphone, Digital Camera, Light Bulb, and Gramophone are among the big ideas. They have been fueling the rise in quality of living standards and high-performing firms, driving economic growth. Hence, there has been an urge of finding big ideas. Unfortunately, in 2017, a few Stanford University Economics Professors drew attention in both academia and the media due to their research finding that “big Ideas are getting harder to find.” As a result, the USA economy has been facing the challenge of growth. To offset this, there has been exponential growth in funding and the number of researchers engaged in R&D. Does it mean that big ideas are becoming increasingly difficult to find? Although Stanford researchers came to such a conclusion, the reality appears to be different.
Big Ideas are Abundant—the challenge is to create Wealth from them
Let’s look at the patent trend. Not in China, there has been a high growth in patent filings at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Between 2000 and 2021, the USPTO experienced a significant growth in patent filings, increasing from 300,000 to over 600,000. On the other hand, China’s patent filings have shot up from almost nothing in 1990 to 1.4 million in 2021. Besides, there has been exponential growth in scientific publications during the first quarter of the 21st century.
Furthermore, there has been exponential growth in Startups, as well as the emergence of unicorns. For example, reports suggest that the number of startups in India has grown from 504 in 2026 to 26542 in 2022. A similar growth trend is observed worldwide. Due to pursuing big ideas, startups with more than $1 billion valuation, known as unicorns, have grown from little over 100 in 2014 to more than 3000 in 2024. Besides, seven AI unicorns have reached $1.3 trillion collective valuation (reported by CNBC on Sept 20, 2025). Despite this, why would we accept that finding big ideas is a more complex or costly endeavor?
Let’s look at more examples. It was estimated in 2023 that the Metaverse would contribute $3 trillion to the global GDP within 10 years. Similarly, IDC estimated in 2024 that “Artificial Intelligence Will Contribute $19.9 Trillion to the Global Economy through 2030 and Drive 3.5% of Global GDP in 2030.” On the other hand, autonomous vehicles will likely substantially reduce road accidents and the resulting GDP loss, as well as increase highway throughput. Hence, it’s estimated that AV could add 2-3 percentage points to global GDP growth annually by 2030. There have been many such predictions. Despite this, researchers have found that the contribution of Innovation, measured as total factor productivity (TFP), has remained relatively flat in the USA for over 60 years. On the other hand, there has been exponential growth in the number of R&D professionals (by a factor of 25 from 1930 to 2000), creating the impression that big ideas are getting harder to find.
Conceptual Flaws in Innovation Theories
Considering the contribution of innovation as an exogenous factor and measuring it as total factor productivity does not unveil how innovations succeed in contributing to quality of living standards, thereby driving economic growth. This perception has evolved somewhat in endogenous growth theories. Despite this, there has been a significant lack of clarity in theorizing how ideas contribute to improving our living standards. For example, Paul Romer’s idea and object theory is based on the belief that every idea leads to an innovative product. Hence, as we continue to increase the idea flow, our quality of living standards rises proportionately.
The number of ideas that accumulate in society depends on the number of R&D professionals who have been searching for them. Despite the growth of R&D professionals, as there has been no increase in TFP, a few economists have concluded that the idea mine is getting deeper, resulting in a scarcity of ideas, or it’s getting harder to find ideas. Furthermore, the innovation theory, which won the Nobel Prize in 2025, suggests that new ideas tend to replace older ones. Unfortunately, the mechanics of Creative Destruction is missing. Hence, the linear correlation between idea supply and wealth creation is under question. Such an approach to theorizing innovation has caused confusion about how wealth is created from ideas. As a result, a contradiction appears to exist between the conclusions economists are drawing and the unfolding reality.
Innovation Waves Need to Cross Rising Threshold
Inventions and innovations have been evolving as waves. An increasing number of ideas are being added to create a cumulative effect. Due to the S-curve-like life cycle, once a wave matures, additional ideas often find little value to add. For example, the iPhone has been a big idea. But due to saturation, further ideas are failing to increase perceived value.
To overcome saturation, innovators are after new waves. These new waves must cross the threshold set by mature waves to offer better alternatives, thereby becoming eligible to contribute to economic growth. Hence, unless the threshold is crossed, ideas that fuel new waves do not succeed in contributing to economic growth. As successive waves have been increasing the threshold, innovators are facing the need for exponential growth in idea supply. And unless they cross the threshold, all those ideas ultimately produce no economic value. Such a reality has created the impression that R&D productivity has been declining, or it has become increasingly challenging to find big ideas.
For example, despite investing more than $80 billion in R&D, the autonomous vehicle concept has yet to deliver any economic benefits. It does not mean that R&D productivity was low. A 2022 report identified 49,000 patent families related to autonomous driving, indicating a staggering number of new ideas. But those patents have yet to deliver any economic value.
Predominant innovation theories developed by economists presume that ideas are static. At best, new ideas can destroy the demand for existing ones. However, the dynamics of the evolution of inventions and innovations have been missing from economic theories, despite having received a couple of Nobel Prizes. As a result, there appears to be an incorrect conclusion that innovation mines are getting deeper resulting in decreasing R&D productivity in finding big ideas.
Subsidy led Push Startup Strategy—increasing cost for ideas to create wealth
The exponential growth of startups may give us the impression that innovations have been proliferating, resulting in a rapid rise in our quality of life. Unfortunately, the reality appears to be opposite. They have been pushing half-baked ideas with subsidies into the mainstream market. As a result, existing mature innovations are facing barriers that prevent them from continuing to add value. In some cases, those half-baked ideas have contributed to pollution, safety issues, and other nuisances. For example, online education has been eroding human competence. On the other hand, online food delivery has been contributing to increased waste. Besides, once venture capital funding stops, all those ideas collapse into ash. As a result, increasing the supply of ideas does not ultimately create new wealth. Instead, they have been wasting resources, thereby worsening R&D productivity.
From the perspective of declining R&D productivity, it appears that generating big ideas is becoming increasingly challenging. Unfortunately, the reality appears to be different. It seems that there has been an abundance of big ideas for reinventing a range of goods and services by leveraging digital, AI, and robotics technologies. The challenge has been to overcome the threshold, which has been going up. Besides, the strategy of startups pushing half-baked ideas into the mainstream market with massive subsidies has contributed to the false impression that it’s getting costly endeavor to find big ideas.
