Designed, Not Counted

What if the thing everyone agrees we need more of is the thing that matters least? In this solo episode of The Disruption Lab, host Kevin McGinnis turns a critical eye on his own field — the world of innovation economies and entrepreneurial ecosystems. The diagnosis is always the same: more programming, more access, more capital. Kevin argues we've been measuring the wrong thing almost entirely. The companies that actually reshape a region were mostly built before they ever reached a program — outside of it, or beneath what we bother to count. Which raises a harder question than anyone usually asks: does any of it cause the outcome, or does it simply select the companies that were going to win anyway, then stand close enough to take the credit? This is a clear-eyed reckoning with selection versus causation — and what an honest scoreboard would actually have to measure. Growth, Kevin believes, is designed, not accidental. But design is not the same as counting.