Philip E. Auerswald - A Phone is a Cow: How Pioneers of the Mobile Revolution Helped Millions Lift Themselves Out of Poverty

Mobile phones extend the capabilities of billions of people across the globe. In A Phone is a Cow, George Mason University professor Philip E. Auerswald profiles the market pioneers who were instrumental in bringing about the mobile revolution. Featuring a foreword by Nobel Laureate Bengt Holmström, this book is the first to tell the story of the unprecedented impact of a device that has transformed from luxury accessory to productivity necessity. Read on to learn more.

What was the inspiration for your book’s title?

The title comes from one of the main protagonists of the book, Iqbal Quadir, who is the founder of Grameenphone in Bangladesh. When Iqbal first had the idea of bringing mobile telephony to people throughout Bangladesh in 1993, the cost of a single mobile handset was about the same as per capita income in the country at the time. So, on the face of it, the idea was sort of preposterous. However, Iqbal had an insight that ended up making all the difference: a mobile phone isn’t just a consumer good. Particularly for people in the poorest places who have access to very little of the institutional infrastructure that we in rich places take for granted, a phone can be a powerful tool for enhancing personal productivity. That was the key insight. When paired with the village lending model that Grameen Bank pioneered in Bangladesh, a phone could be a reliable productive asset that paid for itself. In other words, a phone could be a cow.

You coined the term “combinatorial foresight”—why is this term important to understanding the mobile revolution?

I start the book by quoting Steve Jobs who famously remarked, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” Of course, Steve Jobs knew something about innovation. He was conveying a learned insight here. But in the book, I argue that Jobs was underestimating himself and other market pioneers. Successful innovators sense, almost intuitively, the potential in combinations of technologies and business models that are already “in the air,” waiting to be realized. They then look ahead to how one or more of those combinations might be developed to meet human needs. It’s that capacity to grasp existing technological possibilities and match those possibilities to unmet needs that I call “combinatorial foresight.”

In the preface you cite the work of 2025 Nobel Prize winners in economics—Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt—as being particularly relevant to A Phone Is a Cow. What’s the relationship?

Their work exemplifies the most profound and essential way of thinking about development, which is that advanced by the century-old work by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter. Their recognition underscores the core theme of the book: development is ultimately an evolutionary process largely driven by the efforts of market pioneers.