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Comment by GreedIsGood | Hacker News Reader

None of this addresses perhaps the main issue. Bell Labs predated the venture capital revolution of the 1970s.

The key insight of venture capital was that firms like Bell Labs were holding on to very valuable resources at compensation rates that were far below what those resources could generate if they were empowered to create their own firms.

This was tremendously successful. While we have no counterfactual, innovation in the US blosomed ove the last 50 years. The fundamental research may have languished (I would probably disagree, moore's law didn't happen through magic for example) a tremendous number of companies, and all of the large companies we know of today, which provide all of the services of the modern world were a result of venture capital.

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Moore's law is dead in the USA for almost 20 years. The improvements we see come from research in Asia and the Netherlands.

Also the idea that US tech companies are doing much innovation is debatable. They are designing products for the international markets, but the core technologies are more and more coming from Asia.

ASML is using basic research that was funded by the US government; that is why the US has the ability to veto/restrict who ASML sells the encumbered EUV and related other tech innovations, to.

Yes, the research was initially done in the US. The current research and development is now done by the group in Netherlands. There is nothing in the US that comes close to what they have now.

One of us has our geography confused, I think.

It's not just ASML that is involved in R&D for new chip nodes. And ASML itself has a large part of its operations in the US.

VC is great for anything that doesn't need continuous cooperation from more than 1 domain of expertise, or where no expertise is even needed at the outset. Meritocracy, but atomized meritocracy.

Hence, great for software (and certain Schwerpunkte in hardware scaling) --- not innovation in general, but in fact solidifying a technological caste system: designers > SWE > HWE > every other kind of technical expert

Otherwise, you do need a Bell Labs to make sure your various experts are talking to one another and not constantly in fear of backstabbing by the management, their interns, other experts. (Especially considering in universities these days, rival groups in the same department have to make the same kind of calculations before cooperating)

I can see that YC does pay lip service to building community and such, but perhaps VC is too successful for its own good.

I'm not sure that last part lands quite the way you meant it to.

Relevant username, I guess

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