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New Book Asks Whether Governments Should be in the Venture Capital Business
Colleagues,
As reported in the Boston Globe ... Can governments spark start-up activity and job creation by getting into the venture capital business? Or do they just waste taxpayer money whenever they try?
Those are the two questions that animate the new book from Harvard Business School prof Josh Lerner, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed -- And What to Do About It."
Much of Lerner's book focuses on all the things that can go wrong when governments try to pour taxpayer money into the gas tank of their region's innovation economy...
... But while the stories of failures are entertaining, what's most useful about "Boulevard" are the examples of governments that have gotten it right: Singapore's dogged efforts to spawn start-ups, a seed investment fund in New Zealand, and Yozma, an Israeli government initiative that brought foreign capital into the country by matching outside money that was invested in Israeli start-ups. Lerner also points out that government funding, in particular federal R&D money and military contracts, helped turn an agriculturally-productive corner of northern California into the place now known as Silicon Valley.... (See in MedTech-IQ VideoLibrary ... "The Secret History of Silicon Valley")
And aside from allocating money, Lerner points out that governments can create a fertile environment for entrepreneurship by doing four things that don't require much capital:
- Getting the laws right
- Ensuring access to cutting-edge technologies
- Creating tax incentives, or removing barriers
- Training potential entrepreneurs.
Read on at: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2009/11/new_book_...
ENJOY!
CC
As reported in the Boston Globe ... Can governments spark start-up activity and job creation by getting into the venture capital business? Or do they just waste taxpayer money whenever they try?
Those are the two questions that animate the new book from Harvard Business School prof Josh Lerner, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed -- And What to Do About It."
Much of Lerner's book focuses on all the things that can go wrong when governments try to pour taxpayer money into the gas tank of their region's innovation economy...
... But while the stories of failures are entertaining, what's most useful about "Boulevard" are the examples of governments that have gotten it right: Singapore's dogged efforts to spawn start-ups, a seed investment fund in New Zealand, and Yozma, an Israeli government initiative that brought foreign capital into the country by matching outside money that was invested in Israeli start-ups. Lerner also points out that government funding, in particular federal R&D money and military contracts, helped turn an agriculturally-productive corner of northern California into the place now known as Silicon Valley.... (See in MedTech-IQ VideoLibrary ... "The Secret History of Silicon Valley")
And aside from allocating money, Lerner points out that governments can create a fertile environment for entrepreneurship by doing four things that don't require much capital:
- Getting the laws right
- Ensuring access to cutting-edge technologies
- Creating tax incentives, or removing barriers
- Training potential entrepreneurs.
Read on at: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2009/11/new_book_...
ENJOY!
CC
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