I am a fan of this, not because I agree with all the words, but because we live in an amazing global technicalogival world, and that sprang from a certain financial / fiscal culture in the 19C - and that US/UK culture (laissez faire, government investment in infrastructure etc), and that culture is incredibly valuable, but it is not the only way of arranging taxation, government spending and private investment.
The fact we are talking about Mittelstand is notice that the German approach (arch enemy of UK/US culture through 19C) might suggest a wider phase space than is feared.
We should try something. While the benefits of steam/oil/electricity/silicon/pharmacy are great there are downsides to how we have arranged our societies - and it would be good to explore some of those options rather than say "the solution is always to copy USA, see Meijei for details".
(no this is not some anti-USA rant)
I personally think taking the SoftBank fund and attempting to launch a million startups globally is just as likely to get us results the OP is talking about (even if that's because kicking off 500,000 new companies between Chennai and Jakarta is going to do something, and it cannot be a worse ROI than WeWork
But whatever, there is a phase space outside the standard approach here.
VC is going to be good for taking fundamental tech breakthroughs and pushing them into the public - but the fundamental tech break thoughts have almost always come from
government funded programs (transistors, pharmacy (mid-19C chemistry) etc) - so we should not forget that just more VC is unlikely to solve the big problems (sorry people who want to fix fusion on VC money.
Weirdly Turbine engines might be the best privately funded example. But that basically was a rich guy funding his own itch. That's not a good bet (or as a UK citizen a good way to run a country)
Anyway I am rambling so - yeah go for it. spread the money around as best we can - give it not to the rich or those with success behind them but find other indicators (phd might be one, just lucky is another, old and still passionate if you can measure that or helll just helicopter money in.
Try goddammit because none of us are taking it with us.
The fact we are talking about Mittelstand is notice that the German approach (arch enemy of UK/US culture through 19C) might suggest a wider phase space than is feared.
We should try something. While the benefits of steam/oil/electricity/silicon/pharmacy are great there are downsides to how we have arranged our societies - and it would be good to explore some of those options rather than say "the solution is always to copy USA, see Meijei for details".
(no this is not some anti-USA rant)
I personally think taking the SoftBank fund and attempting to launch a million startups globally is just as likely to get us results the OP is talking about (even if that's because kicking off 500,000 new companies between Chennai and Jakarta is going to do something, and it cannot be a worse ROI than WeWork
But whatever, there is a phase space outside the standard approach here.
VC is going to be good for taking fundamental tech breakthroughs and pushing them into the public - but the fundamental tech break thoughts have almost always come from government funded programs (transistors, pharmacy (mid-19C chemistry) etc) - so we should not forget that just more VC is unlikely to solve the big problems (sorry people who want to fix fusion on VC money.
Weirdly Turbine engines might be the best privately funded example. But that basically was a rich guy funding his own itch. That's not a good bet (or as a UK citizen a good way to run a country)
Anyway I am rambling so - yeah go for it. spread the money around as best we can - give it not to the rich or those with success behind them but find other indicators (phd might be one, just lucky is another, old and still passionate if you can measure that or helll just helicopter money in.
Try goddammit because none of us are taking it with us.