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Is money really the limiting factor for startup growth right now? I feel like it's skill and experience. Maybe if students or recent grads could get apply for

Is money really the limiting factor for startup growth right now? I feel like it's skill and experience. Maybe if students or recent grads could get apply for student loan sized-stipend (~$6K at a time, renewable every 6 months, up to 3x total for $18K)? $1T would cover 50M students (or $1B would fund 50K students) and people would get a chance to work on something, learn, make stupid but risk-free mistakes, and either get something successful, learn that entrepreneurship isn't for them, make connections that would help them in a career, or who knows what. Wouldn't be the worst way the govt ever spent $1B.

mkramlich 15y ago
good point. and I don't disagree with you, but I'd take your argument to the next level about education and say we can educate a heck of a lot more people, more cheaply, and do it on more useful topics, which build more useful, core, long-term, non-profession-specific skills, if we wanted to. It doesn't necessarily require throwing more money, in aggregate, at the education space. May mean spending less, but smarter. Lots of free ways to learn between the Internet, public libraries, family, neighbors, the physical opportunities of the world around us, and life itself. Helping more people to have better focus and willpower, and better emotional balance, and health, would go a long way to improving a lot of other things with the economy, even if indirectly. For example, given a choice between having 1 more fellow citizen become a scientist or engineer, or instead having 10 more fellow citizens not steal, hurt people, be lazy, lack the ability to think logically, be swayed by propaganda when voting, lack ability to manage their own money, lack ability to plan for their future and understand consequences of their choices, and understand the impacts of their choices on their children, family, neighbors, future generations, etc -- I'll take the second option, please. More "higher" education? Good. Much better "lower" education? Ten times as good, I bet.

mkramlich 15y ago

good point. and I don't disagree with you, but I'd take your argument to the next level about education and say we can educate a heck of a lot more people, more cheaply, and do it on more useful topics, which build more useful, core, long-term, non-profession-specific skills, if we wanted to. It doesn't necessarily require throwing more money, in aggregate, at the education space. May mean spending less, but smarter. Lots of free ways to learn between the Internet, public libraries, family, neighbors, the physical opportunities of the world around us, and life itself. Helping more people to have better focus and willpower, and better emotional balance, and health, would go a long way to improving a lot of other things with the economy, even if indirectly. For example, given a choice between having 1 more fellow citizen become a scientist or engineer, or instead having 10 more fellow citizens not steal, hurt people, be lazy, lack the ability to think logically, be swayed by propaganda when voting, lack ability to manage their own money, lack ability to plan for their future and understand consequences of their choices, and understand the impacts of their choices on their children, family, neighbors, future generations, etc -- I'll take the second option, please. More "higher" education? Good. Much better "lower" education? Ten times as good, I bet.