What is emerging, then, is not a truly symbiotic ecosystem of innovation, but a parasitic one, in which the most lossmaking elements are socialised, while the p

What is emerging, then, is not a truly symbiotic ecosystem of innovation, but a parasitic one, in which the most lossmaking elements are socialised, while the profitmaking ones are largely privatised. Yes, this is a real problem, especially in biochemistry right now. It's not that the intellectual property moves over (because government can't own a copyright) but that the people do. There are a number of cases where a researcher in the public sector discovered something and, instead of putting it into the public domain (where it belongs, since the government paid for it) he went to work for a pharma company on a 500k+ salary, which is essentially a finder's fee for IP worth $100M++ to the company. I don't know that this can be solved completely, but I think that (yes, I am going to advocate for more government spending) salaries should be raised to be comparable with, at least, the industry average in the private sector. (Obviously, government can't match the private-sector high-end.) I agree with the general insight of the article. Now, there's a second-order effect that is poorly understood but extremely important. Startups were more innovative in the 1970s than now. Why? Bell Labs and Xerox PARC were in their heyday. The public sector paid only slightly less (10-20%) than private. Academia wasn't the jobless shithole it is today. To get people to leave their jobs in basic research, companies had to compete on autonomy and interesting work. The result was that, even to get in the game, people had to come up with more interesting and better companies. The general lack of autonomy for technical people in 2013 is why the Zyngas exist today. There really isn't that competition. Sure, the large tech companies offer free lunches and one massage per year, but the work is usually so managed and uninspiring that they aren't putting up much of a fight. Doubling down on high-autonomy, basic research work, no matter who does it, government or private, is good for society. It means that the startups that do claw their way into existence will have to be better.