Josef Alois Schumpeter
He was born in 1883 in Třešt' in Vysočina. In a small town with deep cultural roots began the story of a man who fundamentally influenced how we understand capitalism, innovation and the role of the entrepreneur today.
Josef Alois Schumpeter was not just an economist - he was a visionary, a rebel and a thinker with a tragic personal destiny and extraordinary intellectual courage.
Despite his origins, he rose among the world's elite. He studied and worked in Vienna, Berlin, Cairo, Bonn and Harvard. He was Minister of Finance shortly after the First World War, witnessed the fall of the old world, the collapse of the monarchy, the rise of Nazism and the birth of the American dream. His fate parallels the dramatic turning points of the 20th century.
In his best-known work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, he described the key concept of "creative destruction": innovation destroys the old order to create the new. Today, this idea is shaping generations of startups, economists and technological visionaries.
Schumpeter is a fascinating figure. He believed he wanted to be the best economist, horseman and lover of Europe - and he pursued all three goals with equal passion. His life is punctuated by dramatic twists and turns, personal tragedy and intellectual courage.
