All my life is in Spain. I will stay.
Most venture capital funds are too short-termist and exit-driven to deal with the highly uncertain and lengthy innovation process.
Government support is not only investing in upstream areas like basic research, but also in downstream areas like applied research and early-stage financing for the companies themselves. This means there are great risks.
It's important that public funds be spent in research directions that are pushing market frontiers rather than working in existing areas. This means funding research not only on drugs but also on areas like life-style changes, even if the profit potential is lower for Big Pharma as you cannot sell that change as you can sell a medicine.
I often use the iPhone as an example of how governments shape markets, because what makes the iPhone ‘smart’ and not stupid is what you can do with it. And yes, everything you can do with an iPhone was government-funded. From the Internet that allows you to surf the Web, to GPS that lets you use Google Maps, to touch screen display and even the SIRI voice activated system - all of these things were funded by Uncle Sam through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), NASA, the Navy, and even the CIA!
If we want growth today to be more innovation-driven, more inclusive and more sustainable, then we need a more active state, not a less active one. Yet we still hear the dogma that we should just fix market failure by focusing on science and infrastructure, and to "level the playing field. "
What is needed is both a New Deal in terms of mission-oriented investments but also a new deal in terms of a modern social compact - one that allows the state to socialize not only risks but also rewards. Maybe then innovation-led growth will also become growth that includes all of us.
When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5 It ain't to play games with you, it's to aim at you, probably maim you If I owe you I'm blowin' you to smithereens.
I was born in Bradford, a city in the north of England that God forgot about. A place where most people never leave, but if they do, they certainly never go back.
The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where only one grew before.
New Rule: The people of America who were most in favor of the Iraq War must now go there and fight it.