June 27, 2007 11:24AM # It Dawns Upon Gore By [Will Wilkinson](https://www.cato.org/people/will-wilkinson) --- SHARE This [*Fast Company* profile](http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/117/features-gore.html) of Al Gore (via [Jim Henley](http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/06/26/6694)) contains this delicious nugget: > One problem he had in politics, he says, was identifying an issue too early–“ ‘predawn’ is the term I use”–to be able to act on it. But “in the business world, particularly at a time when things are moving so swiftly, if you can see it early, you can make a business opportunity out of it.” He pauses. “For whatever reason, the business world rewards a long-term perspective more than the political world does.” “For whatever reason”! It may be that “predawn” Al Gore has killer entrepreneurial instincts, but, being the scion of a political family, just got caught in the wrong game. However, I suspect he landed on the board of Apple, [for example](http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/117/features-gore-al-gore-inc.html), for reasons other than his proven track record as a market ace. And the $175,000 speakers fee may have something to do with his having won the popular vote in a contest against one of history’s most unpopular presidents. But we can only hope that Gore’s many new business ventures help create new wealth and earn him and a bunch of other people a ton of money. For whatever reason, the incentives provided by markets to look further in the future than the next election tend to do us all a lot of good. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).