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W. Brian Arthur

W. Brian Arthur is External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and a Visiting Researcher at PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center (Formerly Xerox PARC). His recent book, The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves (Simon & Schuster, 2009), is “an elegant and powerful theory of technology’s origins and evolution. It explains how novel technologies arise and how innovation really works.”

Arthur is best known for his theory of increasing returns, which explains what happens when companies that gain market share find it easier to gain further market share, and how such positive feedbacks lock markets in to the domination of one or two players. He is also one of the pioneers of the science of complexity-the science of how patterns and structures self-organize. In 1988 he directed the Santa Fe Institute’s first research program, and has served on the Institute’s board of trustees and science board. From 1983 to 1996 Arthur was Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford University. He holds degrees in operations research, economics, mathematics and electrical engineering. Among his honors are the International Schumpeter Prize in Economics in 1990, the inaugural Lagrange Prize in Complexity Science in 2008, and two honorary doctorates. Brian Arthur is a frequent keynote speaker.