This Fast Company profile of Al Gore (via Jim Henley) 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, 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.