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This. A lot of people forget that Elon Musk spent a large portion of his own money to fund new ventures from Paypal. Bill Gates is helping many disadvantaged pe

by atarian 14y ago

This. A lot of people forget that Elon Musk spent a large portion of his own money to fund new ventures from Paypal. Bill Gates is helping many disadvantaged people around the world with the money he earned from Microsoft. I'd also like to point out that a lot of these Internet companies contribute to charities, so the money isn't just a 100% flow up the hierarchy.

adpirz 14y ago
This doesn't hit the root of the problem. If we rely on the current SV enterprise model, we're basically just hoping that the billionaires that come out of this social media binge will be socially aware enough to invest in hard problems themselves, and in that sense, they become almost feudal lords. This is a case where I think, just like Blanks states, the government's responsibility to counteract market forces for the common good plays a role. We should be tripling our research grant budgets for hard science. I feel like every week I'm hearing of an MIT PhD student making major breakthroughs in nanotube battery capacity or thorium reactor tech, but these aren't valuable investments for private VCs because the returns will not be quick and will not be as outrageous as a site that can go live tomorrow with the virality of the Ebola virus. But that's just the way the cookie crumbles, ie, the market forces at work. I don't think it makes sense on a society level to be investing as much as we are in social ventures, and I hope we do find a way, public or private, to shift some of that investment back into solid tech. Wildcard prediction: biotech is the next big boom.
- Eliezer 14y ago
  Taking money from everyone to fund science... could be argued, I suppose. Taking money from successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to fund government science would be merely stupid. In other words, what I object to about the parent comment is the notion that the U.S. government could possibly, possibly, be better-intentioned and wiser in practice, on average in real life, than the winners of the great startup contest.

by atarian 14y ago

adpirz 14y ago

This doesn't hit the root of the problem. If we rely on the current SV enterprise model, we're basically just hoping that the billionaires that come out of this social media binge will be socially aware enough to invest in hard problems themselves, and in that sense, they become almost feudal lords. This is a case where I think, just like Blanks states, the government's responsibility to counteract market forces for the common good plays a role. We should be tripling our research grant budgets for hard science. I feel like every week I'm hearing of an MIT PhD student making major breakthroughs in nanotube battery capacity or thorium reactor tech, but these aren't valuable investments for private VCs because the returns will not be quick and will not be as outrageous as a site that can go live tomorrow with the virality of the Ebola virus. But that's just the way the cookie crumbles, ie, the market forces at work. I don't think it makes sense on a society level to be investing as much as we are in social ventures, and I hope we do find a way, public or private, to shift some of that investment back into solid tech. Wildcard prediction: biotech is the next big boom.

Eliezer 14y ago
Taking money from everyone to fund science... could be argued, I suppose. Taking money from successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to fund government science would be merely stupid. In other words, what I object to about the parent comment is the notion that the U.S. government could possibly, possibly, be better-intentioned and wiser in practice, on average in real life, than the winners of the great startup contest.