James Corbett once spoke of How Big Brother Seeded the Tech Revolution
Here is a small part of what he said:
More important than these open interventions in the IT sector, however, are the ways that the hand of the US government in the development of modern hardware and software has been hidden behind a smokescreen of venture capital companies. Effectively, this modern system of funding for key tech startups has hidden the intimate relations that continue to exist between Silicon Valley and the heart of America’s intelligence apparatus.
While watching an episode of Triangulation that featured author Leslie Berlin, I learned something about the role the US government played in launching the high-technology industry
Early venture capital was fueled by changes to the laws governing pension funds
I had to look this up for myself
In The Venture Capital Revolution I read
In 1979, the U.S. Department of Labor clarified its “prudent man” rule in a way that explicitly allowed pension fund managers to invest in high-risk assets, including venture capital. Eight years later, when more than $4 billion was invested, pension funds accounted for more than half of all contributions.
And in the paper The Government as Venture Capitalist: The Long-Run Effects of the SBIR Program
the pool of venture capital funds has grown dramatically in recent years. This has been largely due to the relaxation of the regulations and informal curbs that precluded many pension finds from investing in this asset class. The capital constraints literature suggests that public awards to high-technology firms should be associated with significant growth, as firms pursue value-creating projects that they would otherwise be unable to finance.
