Quote:
Originally Posted by mark0
HP was started in a garage. Apple was started in a garage. Google in a garage. Amazon, a garage. EchoBay (EBay), a garage. Facebook, a dorm room. The list goes on and on. Nothing is started in a State sponsored "innovation lab". .
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HP received direct investment from Stanford. eBay and Apple come from the counterculture movement at Berkley. Facebook was one of several social media platforms developed at Harvard. Google came from R&D projects at the University of Michigan and Stanford.
What all of these stories have in common are a welcoming, tolerant atmosphere where curiosity and inventiveness is rewarded... and direct support from government funded research at major universities.
It is inane and insipid to suggest, as you do, that what we need is more garages and people to be left alone to work in them. What we need for innovation is a nurturing atmosphere where people can pursue knowledge and meet with other people from all over the world who are similarly curious and industrious. Even if the next Google isn't created at DPI--and odds are it won't be--the external gains from innovation are enormous. It's incredibly myopic and ignorant to think that the value from innovation is measured in the production of Fortune 50 tech companies.
It would be dumb to build a building and expect that to produce innovation. But if 12 NSF and NIH funded research institutions created a place for research and exploration in a welcoming city close to transit and a major international airport, why San Francisco or Boston would be gagging to secure that asset.