> Behalf Of Charlie Bell
> > It's not surprising, though, really. American success in that
> > endeavor is largely a product of our entreprenurial culture.
That's
> > still quite unique - more than 90% of venture capital, for
example, is
> > American.
>
> Something that is changing, slowly. That's not to say America is
investing
> less, more that investment capital is starting to come from other
places too
> (in my experience of the venture capital business, can't cite papers
on
> that...)
OK, here's a prediction I'm willing to make. Venture capital in
particular will, for the foreseeable future, remain heavily American.
Not almost entirely, perhaps, as it is now, but disproportionately.
Not only will American VC firms continue to dominate that industry,
but they will continue to make most of their investments domestically,
as they do now. Why? One reason is that American legal and corporate
structures are uniquely well-suited to VC, because of the unique
transparency of American markets and so on. For example, the US
refuses to use the recently instituted global standards of accounting.
Why? Because these new standards, although far more transparent than
the old ones, are nonetheless far less transparent than the ones that
the US has been using for decades. For articles on the importance of
VC to the US economy, and the beneficial role that it could, but does
not, play in many other countries, the last edition of Foreign Affairs
has several fascinating articles on the topic. More than legal
structures, however, I think that the major reason is actually
cultural. Steve Woodsum, the co-founder of Summit Partners, is a
friend of mine, and one of the things that struck me when I met him
(among many - he's one of the most impressive people I've ever met) is
that he really is an American archetype. European chroniclers of
American life always remark on people like him - the immensely
talented and energetic person who would go into politics or government
in other countries, or at most would work their way up the hierarchy
of a large business, but instead takes the immense risk of starting
his own company, in the hope succeeding enormously and accepting the
risk of failing completely. In my experience, VC people are some of
the last people in the business world who remain "cowboys" as it
were - who rely more on instinct and risk-taking than formal decision
models. That's something that the American cultural environment is
uniquely hospitable for.
> > But there was no
> > perceptible market for rockets,
>
> Lack of vision from everyone else. It still astounds me that the US
Army
> didn't spot this as a way to blow people up from much further away.
> Charlie
Lack of budget, more likely. During most of the 1930s the United
States had a military budget approximately equivalent in size to that
of _Romania_. The American army after the First World War was
essentially a shattered wreck with officers on the verge of poverty
commanding men with little equipment and less training. That this
institution produced Marshall, Macarthur, Eisenhower, Patton, and
Bradley, among others, is nothing short of a miracle.
********************Gautam "Ulysses" Mukunda**********************
* Harvard College Class of '01 *He either fears his fate too much*
* www.fas.harvard.edu/~mukunda * Or his deserts are small, *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Who dares not put it to the touch*
* "Freedom is not Free" * To win or lose it all. *
******************************************************************
