Hello, I am John Byrne Murdoch, sitting in for Sumayr keynes on the FT's economics show.
In my day job, I crunch data and make charts for the FT in my weekly column, Data Points.
And a few months back I wrote a column arguing
that the west was shifting away from a culture of progress,
of moving fast and breaking things,
and towards one more concerned with caution and perhaps risk or inequality.
And the theory I was setting out was
that a lot of what determines how economies function and what they do and how they grow is how we think about or talk about innovation and progress on a societal level.
Shortly afterwards, someone wrote a very interesting response, pushing back, I think,
on some of the things I was saying, but bringing a lot more material to the discussion.
And that was my guest today, Matt Clancy.
So, Matt, hello.
Thanks for being here.
Now, by way of introduction, can you tell us a little bit about who you are,
what you do, and why the debate about what produces progress is a matter close to your heart?
Yeah.
So by training I'm an academic economist and I specialized in the economics of science and innovation and used to teach at university,
worked for government, but now I am at Open Philanthropy.
We're a grant maker and I run the Innovation Policy Program,
makes grants to try to accelerate scientific and technological progress.