GM:
> more than 90% of venture capital, for
> example, is
> > > American.
Charlie:
> > 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...)
GM:
> 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.
Oh, absolutely. Even a 20% swing over the next 20 years (which is roughly
what I and my colleagues believe, having discussed this at length in the
pub...) would still leave most of the money being American...
> 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.
That's the part that is changing most rapidly, thanks to insurance companies
being prepared to underwrite investment in markets outside North America. VC
in the States does have a particul tinge to it though.
> 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.
Uniquely, no. It's a lot easier there though. It's the biggest problem our
company has, waiting for people outside to make decisions, while we
generally are making decisions extremely fast.
> > > 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.
But surely the US Army was huge...
> During most of the 1930s the United
> States had a military budget approximately equivalent in size to that
> of _Romania_.
Ah. Maybe it wasn't, then.
> 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 I didn't know. Recommend me a book on the period?
> That this
> institution produced Marshall, Macarthur, Eisenhower, Patton, and
> Bradley, among others, is nothing short of a miracle.
Or maybe that adversity was the reason that they flourished? Must remember
to read more about the interwar period.
Charlie
