Comment by renewiltord

One aspect that modern finance has laid clear is the concept of monetization of various assets one possesses. In the past, it wasn't clear that one's brand was monetizable or how one could do that. Individuals would happen upon these now and then, even if it wasn't systematized. The most obvious answer is that R. A. Fisher happened upon a way to monetize his brand in a way that aligned with his politics: he was a good statistician, and therefore people believed him, but the value of "being a good statistician and known to be so" is much higher than just being a good statistician and this was one such thing where he could extract more value. The part about aligned politics is that it helps when you're trading reputation.

Today, most of this is well understood. MIT sells its brand under MIT Media Lab, something you can easily understand if you read the theses published by this division of the university. Other universities sell their brand under things like 30 day courses that grant a certificate named similarly to their graduate degrees. In some sense, they are internalizing the surplus generated by the brand. Interesting model.