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Waves of Innovation
Innovation comes in waves, and as it has been apparent for quite some time now, we are in the age of Social Media. Investors swarm to put big bucks in startups that can return hundreds of millions of dollars (latest example being WhatsApp’s purchase by Facebook) in less than three years. But is this the real essence of innovation?
If investors have a choice of investing in a blockbuster cancer drug that will pay them nothing for fifteen years or a social media application that can go big in a few years, which do you think they’re going to pick? If you’re a VC firm, you’re phasing out your life science division. As investors funding clean tech watch the Chinese dump cheap solar cells in the U.S. and put U.S. startups out of business, do you think they’re going to continue to fund solar? And as Clean Tech VC’s have painfully learned, trying to scale Clean Tech past demonstration plants to industrial scale takes capital and time past the resources of venture capital. A new car company? It takes at least a decade and needs at least a billion dollars. Compared to IOS/Android apps, all that other stuff is hard and the returns take forever.
But what’s great for making tons of money may not be the same as what’s great for innovation or for our country.
Source: Why Facebook is Killing Silicon Valley