I was glad to read the subheadline ?Economic growth will depend on innovative entrepreneurs, not incumbent corporations,? associated with this Newsweek piece from venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
The subheadline offers a sound assessment. One wonders, then, why Khosla believes entrepreneurial innovation involves the same rent-seeking and active support for government meddling that characterizes incumbent corporations:
Beyond increasing support for research, the government can mandate a market for renewable fuels and renewable electricity, which will encourage entrepreneurs to develop these technologies and venture capitalists to invest in them.
The only outcome guaranteed by a government mandate is the flow of resources away from more productive uses to less productive uses, as Daren Bakst explains here.
The thoughts Regina Herzlinger shared recently with Carolina Journal Radio about the health-care field also apply in this case:
No entrepreneur is going to be attracted to a market where the only place you can sell what you have to offer is a store run by Uncle Sam and the only product you can offer has to be vetted by the U.S. Congress. That is a space that attracts people who are interested in political maneuvering. Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Michael Dell ? they wouldn?t be in that kind of space.
Herzlinger would undoubtedly add the next ?energy? entrepreneur to her list.
