Obama Announces $2B Fund for Startups

Laissez faire, telle devrait être la devise de toute puissance publique, depuis que le monde est civilisé ... Détestable principe que celui de ne vouloir grandir que par l'abaissement de nos voisins! Il n'y a que la méchanceté et la malignité du coeur de satisfaites dans ce principe, et l’intérêt y est opposé. Laissez faire, morbleu! Laissez faire!!

(Trans: "Leave it be, that should be the motto of all public powers, as the world is civilized ... That we cannot grow except by lowering our neighbors is a detestable notion! Only malice and malignity of heart is satisfied with such a principle and our (national) interest is opposed to it. Leave it be, for heaven's sake! Leave it be!")

Fixing the immigration and patent systems would be infinitely more helpful (i.e. stop getting in the way).

The problems with proportional would be twofold: 1. How can the company taking the investment verify that the investor doesn't have other Angel investments? Remember: this is most important from a startup perspective to make sure you're able to do clean funding rounds without dealing with the fallout of non-accredited investors. 2. There's nothing to stop people from repeatedly losing 10% (or whatever percent you allow) on stupid gambles.

I'm not convinced that academic credentials would be that useful either. I'd trust someone who's run a plumbing business for ten years far more to evaluate a startup investment than I would your average MBA. I thought it amusing that Swenson talks about university professors as if they are automatically financially sophisticated (one of the few points not backed up by data in Unconventional Success).

Yes, but these are all separate decisions with their own (opportunity) costs, aren't they?

Think of it this way:

Why would the government invest in Facebook or Twitter when there are plenty of people who already have their wallets open? That goes for many tech startups -- YCombinator alone is very beneficial for the government in an indirect way because the government no longer needs to think about funding tech startups -- someone else is already doing it really well for them.

So the real necessity for government intervention is for extremely risky and potentially extremely unprofitable ventures that allow for amazing possibilities (think NASA when the US was afraid of the Soviets). Pure scientific research is often this way as well.

And even NASA is a small fraction of the federal budget (I remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson repeating "half a penny to a dollar" a lot.

So my point is this: startups, research, or pretty much any economy-advancing investments aren't going to exceed the cost of trying to keep people happy. The War in Iraq is an example: we wouldn't be there if we weren't scared 10 years ago. We wouldn't have been eager to go to war unless it made us feel happier or safer or more content. In contrast, how content do people feel when they hear about a space shuttle explosion? Or money "wasted" on research that could be used to feed the poor?

Why did we even fund NASA again? Oh yeah, we were afraid. The United States collectively didn't give a crap about space until we imagined the Soviets creating the Death Star before us.

I'm not saying any of this is rational. Actually, I really agree with you, but the fact that money is going to startups is a good sign. The quantity is low because nothing will cost more than making people feel happy, safe, and secure right now.

I don't recommend angel investing for anyone who can't afford to lose a fairly substantial amount of money, which pretty much excludes anyone who isn't already an accredited investor. Finding the next Facebook or Google is a lot harder than you might think, and even if you did, they probably don't want your money. You are better off investing in your own self (education and the like).

Eliminating the wealth test would mainly benefit scammers.