Continuing the theme (Capitalism, Sustainability and Democracy, Capitalism, Innovation and Democracy, Capitalism, Supply Chains and Democracy), it should have been easily predictable that I would touch upon this sometime pretty soon.
As an Academic Capitalist, I have profited from both Science (that is Curiosity Driven) and Capitalism (that is Commercially Driven), and as a human being, I have benefited more fundamentally from Democracy (that is Citizen Driven).
I had an opportunity – at HOPP, see The Importance of Being Caring – to present some of my initiatives and viewpoints both during my talk and through a panel discussion (moderated effectively by Soroush Saghafian, with Anita Carson, Wally Hopp and Brian Denton as co-panelists; thanks Karen Donohue for the picture!). I wanted to follow up with this article, in some part due to Bill Lovejoy’s thoughtful comments, in a second panel (moderated by Izak Duenyas, with Steve Graves, David Simchi-Levi, Brian Tomlin and Mark Spearman), about how Science and Universities are under attack, and how we may have, as academics, taken many things for granted, and may not appreciate the culture of science that has evolved over the centuries that inherently binds us academics today, and importantly, to recognize our responsibility towards nurturing it.
Indeed, we often overlook the long, fragile cultural evolution of science—an ethos of critical inquiry, probabilistic reasoning, and institutional integrity—whose survival now depends as much on democratic stewardship as on intellectual brilliance. As Harold Varmus reminds us in The Art and Politics of Science, scientific leadership is not just about ideas, but also about institutions, diplomacy, and public trust.
Indeed, as I was about to finalize the post, I received this email from CMU’s Vice President of Research, Theresa Mayer:
Over a perfectly chilled Vesper at Sava in Ann Arbor after the event, I recalled a few books that I have read over the years, and decided to draft this synthesis.
3C: Curiosity, Commercialization and Citizenry
The history of human progress, it seems to me, may be gainfully examined through the triangulation of three grand institutions: capitalism, science, and democracy. Each, taken in isolation, has altered the course of civilization; in their various conjunctions, they have conjured epochs of enlightenment, conflict, and transformation. Yet, as with all triangles, the stability and direction of the whole are determined not merely by its sides, but by their interrelation.
Science emerged as the unruly child of curiosity, perhaps also fueled by necessity. The taming of nature’s secrets could serve the priest or the tyrant as readily as it could liberate the mind. It was the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries—epitomized by Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, and Newton—that permanently altered the balance. The gradual emergence of the scientific method, with its insistence on observation and probabilistic reasoning, introduced a new ethos.
Philip Kitcher’s concept of “well-ordered science” espoused in Science, Truth and Democracy, is especially relevant here. He argues that while science must remain epistemically rigorous, its priorities—what problems it tackles, what knowledge it values—must be shaped through democratic deliberation.
In our own time, this spirit of curiosity has birthed the Second Quantum Revolution, where superposition and entanglement are no longer merely philosophical provocations, but engineering primitives. Spooky Imaging, born of this revolution, exemplifies my curiosity-driven endeavor: not focused on immediate profit but propelled by the desire to peer deeper into the fabric of reality, that may, over the long arc of time, allow us to advance medical imaging to a higher level.
I used this 2×2 box to frame Capitalism (Make Money, Commercially Driven) and Science (Curiousity Driven, Save Lives), and in this setting, to also include Supply Chain (SmartOps) and Healthcare (OrganJet).
And yet, as history shows, today’s metaphysics can become tomorrow’s medicine: Liquid Biopsy technologies, where the convergence of molecular biology and computation now allows for early, non-invasive detection of cancer. What began as scientific ambition has reached the commercial frontier—and, more importantly, a human lifeline.
Just as Moneyball used overlooked statistics to find hidden value in baseball players, liquid biopsy powered by ML finds the silent signatures of cancer long before traditional diagnostics would.
Moneyball is a 2011 American biographical sports drama film. It was adapted from the 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. It stars Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright and Chris Pratt.
In medieval Europe, merchants and artisans, motivated less by abstract piety and more by profit, gradually eroded both city walls and intellectual moats. With the rise of Dutch and later English trading empires, a new principle insinuated itself into political economy: the pursuit of private gain within a framework of market exchange. This—capitalism in embryo—created material incentives for the advancement of technical ingenuity. It is no accident that the scientific revolution coincided with the rise of maritime capitalism; nor that the first great industrial innovation, the steam engine, was both a child of scientific principles and the servant of commercial ambition.
This coupling of science and capitalism continues apace. I myself have engaged in this marriage through SmartOps, a company that commercialized advanced operations research to optimize global supply chains—transforming academic insights into enterprise value. (It was great to meet up with Valerie Tardif at HOPP.)
And where does capital enter this narrative in the most generative form? Neotribe Ventures exemplifies this: empowering university-born innovations to find paths from lab bench to real-world impact. This is not just venture capital, but what might be called venture democracy—marrying scientific progress with commercial success to benefit society at large. It is no coincidence that many such ventures—be it in synthetic biology, quantum hardware, or new forms of therapeutics—trace their lineage to university faculty acting as both scientists and entrepreneurs.
Yet it must be remembered that capitalism’s friendship with science has always been an affair of convenience—a marriage not of love, but of profit. Where scientific discovery could be harnessed for economic advantage, capital leapt to embrace it; where it could not, or where it threatened established interests, it was dismissed or suppressed. Thus the spirit of innovation, so lauded in public oratory, coexisted fitfully with monopolies, cartels, and the calculated starvation of invention.
OrganJet is a distinctly citizen-driven effort—democratizing access to life-saving organ transplants underscores that conceptual ingenuity can and should be yoked to social justice. SmartOps was Software Entrepreneurship, supported by Venture Capital, while OrganJet is Social Entrepreneurship that was self-funded.
Democracy, as practiced in the ancient world, was tightly circumscribed, often limited to an elite minority. Its rebirth in the modern era—most importantly, through the revolutions in America and France—coincided with the dissemination of print culture and, later, mass literacy: both themselves children of technological change and capitalist enterprise.
Timothy Ferris, in The Science of Liberty, reminds us that science and democracy are not merely allies of convenience—they are co-evolved systems. Just as science depends on free inquiry and critical debate, democracy thrives on openness, evidence, and the ability to revise our views. Where science is censored, democracy erodes. Where democracy weakens, science falters. Ferris calls this “liberal science”—a social order built around ongoing criticism, experimentation, and pluralism.
The intrinsic premise of democracy, that each individual should have a voice in their own governance, stands in essential tension with both the hierarchical structure of capital and the meritocratic claims of science. The former depends upon inequality of ownership; the latter, on inequality of expertise.
This uneasy alliance has produced, at times, a remarkable synergy: the widespread application of scientific advances to public life, the extension of education, and the regulation of monopoly. Yet, democracy’s susceptibility to demagoguery and capital’s tendency to concentrate power present enduring obstacles—ones that have become, in our own era, sources of rising anxiety.
Today, as we stand on the precipice of pervasive artificial intelligence and new forms of economic oligarchy, the interplay of science, capitalism, and democracy demands renewed scrutiny. We inhabit an age where scientific knowledge is both more powerful and more specialized than ever before; where global capitalism, in the hands of a few, binds all peoples in networks of mutual dependence and potential exploitation; and where democracy, both as ideal and practice, confronts challenges from within and without.
Science without democracy becomes the servant of despotism; capitalism without scientific curiosity degenerates into stagnation; democracy without either is prey to demagogues. It is only through a continual dialectic—one that recognizes both the tensions and the possibilities inherent in their mutual interaction—that progress, such as it is, may be secured. The future will be determined not by the victory of any one principle, but by our capacity to hold them in productive tension.
Off soon to see TYE at Tepper, fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs in an academic environment.
