If you don't have sufficient failure, your system is either corrupt (see financial sector), or almost by definition people are not trying interesting enough ide

If you don't have sufficient failure, your system is either corrupt (see financial sector), or almost by definition people are not trying interesting enough ideas and taking enough risks. This is incorrect. There is no law that says "Hey, if you're not failing a whole bunch you clearly aren't learning new things and trying out stuff!". A great deal of progress can and has been made by people making conservative market decisions. A great deal of success has happened without spastic startupcanistan spending of cash with no rhyme or reason. Steady-state in an industry doesn't mean stagnation, it doesn't mean no progress, and so forth. It means the same number of firms leaving as entering--usually because crazy gold-rush investment and whatnot isn't taking place. It means that wages settle towards a more reasonable and sustainable distribution, that customers are getting value reliably, and that resources aren't getting thrown away and careers screwed up by rapid business spinups and shutdowns. I don't mind that people claim that the startup scene, Valley, etc. are somehow "building value"...what I do mind is the complete and utter denial of valid criticisms of that claim. A steady-state economy is, by definition, one that has built non-transient value: it remains to be seen whether the last five years of companies have accomplished that. The thing about your last point is that, honestly, the fundable things aren't "super interesting crazy ideas". They're me-too followers on where a VC or angel is trying to bet on their favorite second-mouse to get the cheese. Don't conflate technological progress with what the current startup ecosystem is doing, because that idea is the flimsiest propaganda imaginable. Innovation happens outside startuplandia in, I'd suggest, greater quantity (if not rate!) than inside. ~ There is a lot of blind regurgitation of "startup fail fast only way to progress must progress fail faaaaster" going on right now, least of all because it kinda suits the investing class--and a lot of bright and well written people, you included, seem to be parroting it without much critical thought.