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I think everyone on this thread would agree that people can pick winners, but some would argue that the government has been inefficient about picking those winn

I think everyone on this thread would agree that people can pick winners, but some would argue that the government has been inefficient about picking those winners in the past. I personally think that there is a lack of scientifically literate people in our government, outside of Steven Chu, compared to the VC community who can pick winners.

_delirium 14y ago
Does the VC community actually have a better record than the government does in picking winners? A lot of VC funds do quite poorly. Of course, you could say that good VC funds do, and choose what you count as good VC funds in hindsight, based on returns. But then you could also say that good government programs and agencies have good records, if they're also chosen in hindsight.
zevets 14y ago
While it's hard to make a data driven argument in this field, I think the US government has been incredibly successful in picking winning new technological ideas, judged by my notion that the vast majority of the scientific and technical advances in the last 60 years have occurred here in the United States. The US government has long had a tradition of picking winners in science and technology, and I don't think the fact that we are also the leader in science and technology is simply coincidental to that. Looking for counterexamples, ie technical advances that have occurred outside of the US due to lack of government support, the only one that comes to mind is the failures in green technology, but I think that small failures there are minor compared to the other successes. I also think looking for scientific literacy in the executive positions of government is less relevant in the highly bureaucratic world of government funded research, as there executives have less control on individual funding than they would in the private sector. As long as the the executives respect the technical expertise of their bureaucrats, (and the workforce is knowledgeable), then individual domain knowledge is less critical than it would be in the private sector.

_delirium 14y ago

Does the VC community actually have a better record than the government does in picking winners? A lot of VC funds do quite poorly. Of course, you could say that good VC funds do, and choose what you count as good VC funds in hindsight, based on returns. But then you could also say that good government programs and agencies have good records, if they're also chosen in hindsight.

zevets 14y ago

While it's hard to make a data driven argument in this field, I think the US government has been incredibly successful in picking winning new technological ideas, judged by my notion that the vast majority of the scientific and technical advances in the last 60 years have occurred here in the United States. The US government has long had a tradition of picking winners in science and technology, and I don't think the fact that we are also the leader in science and technology is simply coincidental to that. Looking for counterexamples, ie technical advances that have occurred outside of the US due to lack of government support, the only one that comes to mind is the failures in green technology, but I think that small failures there are minor compared to the other successes. I also think looking for scientific literacy in the executive positions of government is less relevant in the highly bureaucratic world of government funded research, as there executives have less control on individual funding than they would in the private sector. As long as the the executives respect the technical expertise of their bureaucrats, (and the workforce is knowledgeable), then individual domain knowledge is less critical than it would be in the private sector.