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All government-run company funding programs are flawed for one simple reason: the bureaucracy is unfit to judge early-stage companies.* The only protection the
by fraserharris 11y ago
All government-run company funding programs are flawed for one simple reason: the bureaucracy is unfit to judge early-stage companies.* The only protection the bureaucracy has is layers of rules and lengthy application processes. These barriers naturally increase over time as various bad actors game the system.
* Later-stage / mature companies can be evaluated on financial statements.
- cuckcuckspruce 11y agoTrue, but in some cases the barriers that governments erect to enter the marketplace are barriers that I very much want. I want agribusiness to get their food to me in a clean state. I want car companies to demonstrate that they can produce a car that meets safety requirements before they can sell road-worthy cars. I want pharmaceutical companies to meet the basic requirement that their drugs do what they claim that they do. So not all barriers increasing are due to bad actors, but sometimes due to demands of society to have clean food, safe cars, and lead-free drugs.
- fraserharris 11y agoAgreed - my comment is specifically re funding programs. Government employees are not equipped (to put it charitably) to evaluate the likelihood of success of startups. Their proxy metric is an onerous rules-based application process. Perversely, this excludes the startups they are trying to select for because those startups can raise capital elsewhere faster and on better terms.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]