6 ms·
> The US government has funded a bunch of early stage technologies Regarding title: FTFY The US government is probably the most successful venture capitalist
by cushychicken 3y ago
> The US government has funded a bunch of early stage technologies
Regarding title: FTFY
The US government is probably the most successful venture capitalist in history.
Scott Galloway defends this thesis admirably: https://www.profgalloway.com/welfare-queens/ https://www.profgalloway.com/welfare-queens/
I have a sneaking suspicion that the semiconductor industry as we know it would not exist without copious and frequent government funding.
- tcmart14 3y agoFor sure whether directly or indirectly. I don't think we'd be where we are without Eniac. I wouldn't be surprised if most of Intel's early customers where in some way or shape related to NASA or DARPA/Defense. IBM got its start also by selling hardware and software to the government. Even though those may not be semiconductors as we see today, we wouldn't have gotten the innovation of semiconductors, at least as early as we did, without the government essentially bootstrapping computing on scale.
- cushychicken 3y agoIntel specifically, I couldn't say. But the government was a huge early customer of SV chip companies - particularly those that had to do with optics. The USA proudly (but quietly) had the best spy satellites in the world for decades, and the semiconductor industry was a big factor in why they did. Maybe still do - hard to know exactly without a hell of a lot of security clearances. Highly recommend Steve Blanks "Secret History of Silicon Valley" for more on this: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/?amp https://steveblank.com/secret-history/?amp