The Next New Thing: Venture Capital Stories
computerhistory.org
computerhistory.org
How much of this innovation is baed on tech that was created and funded with public money and gov grants and then privatized when it became commercial and profitable. Sure seems like we stopped advancing the science of the commons when VCs started growing in the 80s along with bank deregulation.
If the US will use fiscal policy to err on the side of over-stimulating rather than under-stimulating going forward, as it has in the COVID aftermath, we can keep the natural rate of interest positive and the whole economy (including VC) will be a lot healthier.
The gig economy is the poster child for this new style of VC.
Or built on top of open source that then was never contributed/donated back to
> How much of this innovation is baed on tech that was created and funded with public money and gov grants and then privatized when it became commercial and profitable
Very little compared to the amount that goes in after privatization. Also look at the alternative, if the govt prevents commercialization even if a single cent of public money is invested, there will be lesser businesses, lesser jobs, etc.
> > How much of this innovation is baed on tech that was created and funded with public money and gov grants and then privatized when it became commercial and profitable
It is strange to take this stance. Because it can be asked the other way too.
How much of that govt money initially came from taxes from those that businesses paid?
https://www.businessroundtable.org/archive/media/news-releas...
Always think of second-order effects (e.g. Canada now asking Meta to allow news back on its site).
This take on VC history is incredibly specious and reads like a bunch of country club boys taking advantage of the CH writer’s “unbiased” tone because they couldn’t get their edits approved in Wikipedia.
Missing from the story:
* Radar and stealth development and US Gov investment in Stanford, MIT, etc, that predates much of the VC comments in this article. US Taxpayers made a huge investment in SV.
* It touches on Apple but totally ignores Steve Jobs relationship with the Apple Board
* Modern textbook examples of VC Boardroom greed e.g. Pets.com, Broadcast.com, Paypal, Uber, Wework, etc etc SPACS especially
* The move to megacap Founder-owned companies E.g. Facebook, Airbnb, Snap, Google. Historically these examples cement the relative uselessness of VCs in internet endeavors that are much less capital-intensive vs hardware.
It’s a decent article on how VCs see themselves as being helpful but an unabashed sign that the biases of the Computer History Museum.