The story of wealthy Rothschild¡¯s family shows why information is important. In the nineteenth century, there was a war between Napoleon¡¯s France and the Allied Forces, which consisted of the United Kingdom and other European nations. This famous war is called the Battle of Waterloo, and the Rothschild¡¯s family became the richest family through the war. At that time, they had their own information network system which allowed the family to acquire information faster than any other Europeans. Owing to it, they could hear the news about a victory by the Allied Forces earlier than the others. However, they spread a rumor that Napoleon won a battle, and the price of Britain¡¯s government bonds plummeted. In reverse, they bought a great amount of the bonds. After people found out about the victory of Allied Forces, the price of bonds rebounded, and the family got wealthy that nobody had.
This story shows that getting information faster than others is important. However, speed doesn¡¯t seem important in the twenty-first century. Because media are very involved in our daily lives, we can get any information faster than in the past if we have an interest. In this century, accuracy is more important than speed.
There is the story of the dot-com bubble that shows the importance of accurate information. In the late 1990s, many IT technology related businesses were made. There were few people who knew what IT businesses really did, but many people overvalued them. They made excessive investments in the IT field, and many people even thought that they had to invest in the IT field much faster than others before the value of IT businesses dropped. In the end, unreasonable faith about inaccurate information made the dot-com bubble, and it ended in the early 2000s. However, countless personal investors and businesses became bankrupt after that.
Since the dot-com bubble, we have been able to get information much faster than 10 years ago. However, there is also more inaccurate information than in the past. Thus, I think that an ability to get accurate information will be a key of success.