Sorry but I strongly disagree with your assertion that building a business is a zero-sum game. At the basic level, a farmer who sows a field and harvests a crop is making the world one harvest richer, and no one poorer. Ditto for the carpenter making a table or mechanic fixing a car. PG addressed this long ago: http://paulgraham.com/gap.html
Scientists turn money into knowledge. Entrepreneurs turn knowledge into money. It's a virtuous cycle. Scientists lament that they don't get their "fair share" but it's wrong to blame innovators, better to reevaluate their own economic strategy. What if we had private research institutes turning out cutting edge research? Or vertically integrated ones that commercialized their own discoveries, like Spacex?
Scientists turn money into knowledge. Entrepreneurs turn knowledge into money. It's a virtuous cycle. Scientists lament that they don't get their "fair share" but it's wrong to blame innovators, better to reevaluate their own economic strategy. What if we had private research institutes turning out cutting edge research? Or vertically integrated ones that commercialized their own discoveries, like Spacex?