Superfreakonomics; Superplug for Intellectual Ventures

“I enjoyed Levitt & Dubner’s “Freakonomics”, and picked up
the followup “Superfreakonomis” recently at an airport. The last
chapter, however, was astonishing. The entire chapter was devoted
to a glowing advertisement for Intellectual Ventures, pointing out
that they own 20,000 patents “more than all but a few dozen
companies in the world”, but of course “there is little hard
evidence” that they are patent trolls.

“But this bunch of wacky genius billionaires have solved global
warming (much of which they dispute anyway) and can control malaria
and prevent hurricanes from forming. Unlike the rest of the book
which covers analysis of well-known facts and disputes them with
insightful economic research, this chapter is so breathless and
gushy that it makes me question the rest of the author’s work.”

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