Company backed by James Cameron & Google founders may mine asteroids
I'm having a thought that I'm having a difficult time even stepping in to. So James Cameron, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt are starting a venture to mine asteroids. James Cameron recently dove to the deepest parts of the ocean in his own submersible. The launch of Elon Musk & SpaceX's Falcon 9 mission to the ISS is just around the corner. I know I've read about other famous people launching wildly ambitious projects, but I can't remember them at the moment.<p>This is just mind blowing to me. These are endeavors normally left to nation states. There's something buried in here that I find fascinating.<p>In the past, when these endeavors were carried out by nation states, all the baggage of bureaucracy was along for the ride. Fast forward to today, and you have individuals with the imagination and the means to dream big. It's possible to undertake something insane -- like mining asteroids -- on your own.<p>I'm left thinking about the way that Steve Jobs ran Apple. I don't intend to steal credit from all the hard work of the people at Apple, but Steve Jobs ran Apple in a way that stands in contrast to many other companies. The fulcrum of decision making was remarkably focused on a single point: him.<p>I don't know the end game for capitalism, but a lot of people believe that along the way to its downfall, there is a massive consolidation of wealth. The presumption is that these individuals will all be corrupt fat cats that enslave the masses.<p>What if it's the opposite? What if the people who end up with the wealth do great things with it? It's kind of like a bunch of micro-sized benevolent dictatorships, but the dictator is naturally selected through capitalistic means: successful individuals gather the wealth required to reach this role in society.