Question
What does it mean to create value?
Answer
I have an incredibly simple necessary and sufficient test for value-addition.
If and only if you feel transformed, there has been value addition.
Any act of creative-destruction will transform you personally. You will not be the same person before as after. There is almost a conservation principle here.
This is a dangerously double-edged test, since it is morally relativist, which I believe is fine, since "value addition" SHOULD depend on your "values." So by this definition, Bin Laden must have felt transformed by the success of 9/11. So within his moral framework, it was a 'value adding act' of creative-destruction (destroy a part of America, create value for his particular ideal of Islam). The weaker 'necessary but not sufficient' form is also a decent definition for those who operate by an absolute morality (like 'liberal democracy is best for all').
Or to turn it around, if you don't feel transformed in at least a tiny way by an act, you haven't created value.
Keep in mind though that the internal transformation and external value addition can be separated in time and space. If you were transformed by practicing guitar for 100s of hours as a teen, and later, as a celebrity you give a fan an autograph, that incident may leave you untouched but transform the fan's life. That's a case of your earlier "stored up transformation potential" from when you learned to play the guitar.
Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is a nice parable that illuminates this idea. It is driven by the metaphysical idea that the mythical philosopher's stone, which can transmutate base metals to gold, also transforms and purifies anyone who seeks it. You try to add value by turning lead into gold, you will necessarily end up also transforming your Walmart soul into a 5th avenue soul.
If and only if you feel transformed, there has been value addition.
Any act of creative-destruction will transform you personally. You will not be the same person before as after. There is almost a conservation principle here.
This is a dangerously double-edged test, since it is morally relativist, which I believe is fine, since "value addition" SHOULD depend on your "values." So by this definition, Bin Laden must have felt transformed by the success of 9/11. So within his moral framework, it was a 'value adding act' of creative-destruction (destroy a part of America, create value for his particular ideal of Islam). The weaker 'necessary but not sufficient' form is also a decent definition for those who operate by an absolute morality (like 'liberal democracy is best for all').
Or to turn it around, if you don't feel transformed in at least a tiny way by an act, you haven't created value.
Keep in mind though that the internal transformation and external value addition can be separated in time and space. If you were transformed by practicing guitar for 100s of hours as a teen, and later, as a celebrity you give a fan an autograph, that incident may leave you untouched but transform the fan's life. That's a case of your earlier "stored up transformation potential" from when you learned to play the guitar.
Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is a nice parable that illuminates this idea. It is driven by the metaphysical idea that the mythical philosopher's stone, which can transmutate base metals to gold, also transforms and purifies anyone who seeks it. You try to add value by turning lead into gold, you will necessarily end up also transforming your Walmart soul into a 5th avenue soul.