* TCP/IP (USDOD)
* HTTP and HTML (CERN)
* The initial research for the Google algorithm (NSF)
* Compaq and Intel’s early stage funds (SBIR)
* Tesla was launched with a $500m guaranteed government loan
In fact, 77 out of the most important 88 innovations between 1971 and 2006 (rated by R&D Magazine’s annual awards) were fully dependent on US federal government support (1)
My question was: In building the Internet we use today, how much money was spent by governments, and how much by private industry?
My initial comment was an attempt to illustrate the fact that startup funders and VC's that get rich don't make innovations in a vacuum. They rely on a complex network of global labour, government funding, university research and the entire history of human knowledge.
Therefor I don't think funders and capital owners should feel so certain about their privilege to extract enormous amounts of private wealth for the prize of rising income inequality.