How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
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How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#2I think the "support" of DC is the kiss of death for any industry or field.
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#3Especially for techies, there are some good programs available for people who want to try a startup. Specifically SBIR (small business innovative research) and STTR (Small business Technology TRansfer) are really well suited to get money to get your feet off the ground. And they don't want any equity in return, they just want to be a customer!
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#4Especially for techies, there are some good programs available for people who want to try a startup. Specifically SBIR (small business innovative research) and STTR (Small business Technology TRansfer) are really well suited to get money to get your feet off the ground. And they don't want any equity in return, they just want to be a customer!
Just remember that both of these programs require paperwork that has to be submitted at an appropriate time of the year. It's not like you can just walk up and get SBIR funding.
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#5Especially for techies, there are some good programs available for people who want to try a startup. Specifically SBIR (small business innovative research) and STTR (Small business Technology TRansfer) are really well suited to get money to get your feet off the ground. And they don't want any equity in return, they just want to be a customer!
You're kidding, right? No, seriously, you're kidding, right? They're predicated on "protectable IP" and only go to established companies - i.e. your side project doesn't qualify unless you've already incorporated. I could go on, but I already did:
http://www.businessinsider.com/economic-advice-from-an-entre...
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#6Especially for techies, there are some good programs available for people who want to try a startup. Specifically SBIR (small business innovative research) and STTR (Small business Technology TRansfer) are really well suited to get money to get your feet off the ground. And they don't want any equity in return, they just want to be a customer!
You're kidding, right? No, seriously, you're kidding, right? They're predicated on "protectable IP" and only go to established companies - i.e. your side project doesn't qualify unless you've already incorporated. I could go on, but I already did: http://www.businessinsider.com/economic-advice-from-an-entre...
Odd, I worked for a small (3 people) company that lived off of these things. We didn't have any problems.
I'll note that these were all DoD.
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#7I think the "support" of DC is the kiss of death for any industry or field.
I don't think you deserve such down-voting ... Paul Graham's page has a link to T.J. Rodgers' congressional testimony to this very point.
However, there is "support" and there is throwing money. You're right about throwing money, but I think you're wrong about intelligent support.
DC can always, _always_ do a better job by:
1) Not subsidizing anyone, ever.
2) Increasing transparency of its laws
3) Taxing negative externalities rather than positive ones (so tax carbon instead of capital gains)
4) Removing market distortions like the immigration issue discussed in the article.
Notice that these measures are largely undoing rather than doing, and therefore don't sell well. DC is also, as you rightly point out, in a unique position to completely screw up any field it turns it eye to, by:
1) Subsidizing some part of the industry which therefore damages the innovation that would out-compete it.
2) Preventing failures and disallowing the knowledge acquired there to be applied to subsequent successful ventures
3) Making complicated, vaguely worded and frequently changing specific to an industry's particulars (like only allowing Cable providers to supply Television over their wires)
Sadly, the second set of policies sells a lot better politically than the first set. Which raises the question - why not? What's wrong with it?
Why does the US always feels the need to be "world-leading" at everything?
Is it really necessary to be world-leading? Is it so fundamental to the national ego that it is unthinkable to assume that like every other major power, our influence will wane and our leadership will become first co-operation and then acquiescence?
It seems silly, sometimes, to strive so vehemently for predominance, yet to have no use for it when obtained.
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#8I think the "support" of DC is the kiss of death for any industry or field.
I don't think you deserve such down-voting ... Paul Graham's page has a link to T.J. Rodgers' congressional testimony to this very point. However, there is "support" and there is throwing money. You're right about throwing money, but I think you're wrong about intelligent support. DC can always, _always_ do a better job by: 1) Not subsidizing anyone, ever. 2) Increasing transparency of its laws 3) Taxing negative ext…
"Taxing negative externalities rather than positive ones (so tax carbon instead of capital gains)"
Problem: Negative externalities are supposed to go away. At which point you have no money. So you have to tax things (like income) that people just aren't going to do away with!
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you deserve such down-voting ... Paul Graham's page has a link to T.J. Rodgers' congressional testimony to this very point. However, there is "support" and there is throwing money. You're right about throwing money, but I think you're wrong about intelligent support. DC can always, _always_ do a better job by: 1) Not subsidizing anyone, ever. 2) Increasing transparency of its laws 3) Taxing negative ext…
"Taxing negative externalities rather than positive ones (so tax carbon instead of capital gains)" Problem: Negative externalities are supposed to go away. At which point you have no money. So you have to tax things (like income) that people just aren't going to do away with!
You can tax land. Land isn't going to go away:
Re: How Washington Can Support Entrepreneurs
#10I think the "support" of DC is the kiss of death for any industry or field.
I don't think you deserve such down-voting ... Paul Graham's page has a link to T.J. Rodgers' congressional testimony to this very point. However, there is "support" and there is throwing money. You're right about throwing money, but I think you're wrong about intelligent support. DC can always, _always_ do a better job by: 1) Not subsidizing anyone, ever. 2) Increasing transparency of its laws 3) Taxing negative ext…
1) Not subsidizing anyone, ever.We'd have no tech industry at all in Asia if it weren't for HEAVY industry subsidization in early stages in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, followed by the wildly successful Chinese special export zones (which are, to some extent, just a loosening of laws, but also included economic stimulus). This same pattern has emerged worldwide in a number of other industries (Taiwanese Orchids and African textiles off the top of my head) that otherwise wouldn't have appeared at all.
If you'd like some better cites on this you could do worse than to start with the work of Dani Rodrik: http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~drodrik/papers.html The government doesn't have to pick winners in terms of single companies or technologies, but subsidizing whole sectors is often quite useful.
2) Increasing transparency of its laws 3) Taxing negative externalities rather than positive ones
(so tax carbon instead of capital gains)
4) Removing market distortions like
the immigration issue discussed in the article. 1) Subsidizing some part of the industry which therefore
damages the innovation that would out-compete it.The 'second kind' of policies arise not necessarily from a desire to be 'world leading', but because lawmakers have a different criteria of what is positive than you do. Many things that are strictly profit increasing are not welfare increasing, whether for the better (Save AIG because they reinsure half of the damn country and insurance rates would soar), or for the worse (Save GM because unions are politically powerful and raise my chances of re-election).
I feel like many HN'ers (although not necessarily you) went out and took econ 101 and 102, decided it was mathematical proof for strict Randian libertarianism, and now deride any government. This simplified view isn't well supported even in economics, particularly since so many problems in real life fall into either collective action or non-rational behavior categories.