A couple of days ago there was a statement here by someone claiming that California got 1/3 of the worlds venture capital, it looks like that could be spent better than on the 'next hot thing' on the web. Unbelievable, what a scene.
1. VC do invest in a lot of things beyond "the next hot thing on the web", including hardware, cleantech, enterprise software, etc.
2. VCs have a responsibility to get returns for their investors, not fix the government's fiscal problems.
3. Those "next hot things" have at one time or another included companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and others, which have together contributed billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to the state of CA. Not bad for some stupid web 2.0 fad, huh?
"VCs have a responsibility to get returns for their investors, not fix the government's fiscal problems."
I realize this isn't what you were getting at, but its a good place to make the remark.
Its every American's responsibility to pay a certain amount of time and effort into ensuring government is run well. If your dance card is too full with making money and no time left over to watch over your government, it catches up with you. I'm not singling out VCs here. It is a general problem for an economy to be structured so most do not have time or inclination to pay attention to governance maintenance. There is a second problem which generally only applies to wealthy and/or well organized groups which is the inclination to "corrupt" governance in their favor. Both these problems have reached critical effect.
As evidenced by the state described in the article...
No, it's not bad, but apparently the wealth is not spread in a way that precludes conditions the likes of which should not be seen in third world countries, let alone the first.
Of course these problems are not there for the VCs to fix, it's just that California was mentioned rather loudly as 'the place to be'.
Money in CA is allocated more in ways that benefit politically powerful groups, rather than what is most efficient for the public as a whole. The public sector unions are the very worst. It's incredible how long it takes them to repair a road or build an overpass. They literally worked on the overpass at CA-237 and I-880 for 7 years. Unreal.
A nice example from California, a little bit north of LA (where I've lived for three months at the expense of one of my customers) there is an area with lots of really really fancy houses. They must be worth upwards of several million $ a piece.
The driveways are absolutely immaculate, the road they empty out on is worse than some of the roads in Northern Canada. I've seen the exact same thing in countries that literally qualify as third world.
In case you don't know what is meant by the term, but Colombia and Panama definitely qualify. By 'modern' standards some parts of Romania and eastern Poland do too, but I've been to plenty of other places that would count, either by that map or because of the local conditions. And I'm not talking package holidays here but stays of at least several months.
I'm using these roads as an example because at the time it struck me as indicative of what might be wrong there.
If your country is 'the richest in the world' by some measurements then that wealth should be translated to an increased higher standard of living for the poorest, and an increase in infrastructural spending that will benefit everyone, not just the rich.
If you can't manage that, in other words if your poor are still not provided health care, proper housing and education and if you have an underclass that basically has very few choices of making parity with those born into richer families (and hey, isn't that what that famous American dream is all about) as well as an enormous criminal problem then maybe we should propose redrawing that wikipedia map along more objective criteria.
And quite possibly, we'll find that California has much more in common with third world countries than with the first, no matter how rich the rich, and no matter how much the GDP.
Northern Canada is a good comparison because it probably has the lowest GDP per surface unit of any country in the world, but they also have one of the best health care systems, and their work on roads is nothing short of amazing, especially if you take in to account the effect of the climate on the roads there.
If everybody in California (including corporations) would be paying taxes relative compared to other 'first world' countries then such things would be taken for granted.
Until it is solved through taxation everybody, VCs included (who really are only in the game to turn a ton of money in to even more money) has a responsibility to look after their neighbours.
Comments
A couple of days ago there was a statement here by someone claiming that California got 1/3 of the worlds venture capital, it looks like that could be spent better than on the 'next hot thing' on the web. Unbelievable, what a scene.
1. VC do invest in a lot of things beyond "the next hot thing on the web", including hardware, cleantech, enterprise software, etc.
2. VCs have a responsibility to get returns for their investors, not fix the government's fiscal problems.
3. Those "next hot things" have at one time or another included companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and others, which have together contributed billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to the state of CA. Not bad for some stupid web 2.0 fad, huh?
"VCs have a responsibility to get returns for their investors, not fix the government's fiscal problems."
I realize this isn't what you were getting at, but its a good place to make the remark. Its every American's responsibility to pay a certain amount of time and effort into ensuring government is run well. If your dance card is too full with making money and no time left over to watch over your government, it catches up with you. I'm not singling out VCs here. It is a general problem for an economy to be structured so most do not have time or inclination to pay attention to governance maintenance. There is a second problem which generally only applies to wealthy and/or well organized groups which is the inclination to "corrupt" governance in their favor. Both these problems have reached critical effect.
As evidenced by the state described in the article...
No, it's not bad, but apparently the wealth is not spread in a way that precludes conditions the likes of which should not be seen in third world countries, let alone the first.
Of course these problems are not there for the VCs to fix, it's just that California was mentioned rather loudly as 'the place to be'.
For start-ups maybe.
Money in CA is allocated more in ways that benefit politically powerful groups, rather than what is most efficient for the public as a whole. The public sector unions are the very worst. It's incredible how long it takes them to repair a road or build an overpass. They literally worked on the overpass at CA-237 and I-880 for 7 years. Unreal.
You've clearly never been to a third-world country or California if you think that our problems are anywhere close to third-world status.
Wrong on both counts, so now what ?
A nice example from California, a little bit north of LA (where I've lived for three months at the expense of one of my customers) there is an area with lots of really really fancy houses. They must be worth upwards of several million $ a piece.
The driveways are absolutely immaculate, the road they empty out on is worse than some of the roads in Northern Canada. I've seen the exact same thing in countries that literally qualify as third world.
I refer you to this map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_world_country
In case you don't know what is meant by the term, but Colombia and Panama definitely qualify. By 'modern' standards some parts of Romania and eastern Poland do too, but I've been to plenty of other places that would count, either by that map or because of the local conditions. And I'm not talking package holidays here but stays of at least several months.
I'm using these roads as an example because at the time it struck me as indicative of what might be wrong there.
If your country is 'the richest in the world' by some measurements then that wealth should be translated to an increased higher standard of living for the poorest, and an increase in infrastructural spending that will benefit everyone, not just the rich.
If you can't manage that, in other words if your poor are still not provided health care, proper housing and education and if you have an underclass that basically has very few choices of making parity with those born into richer families (and hey, isn't that what that famous American dream is all about) as well as an enormous criminal problem then maybe we should propose redrawing that wikipedia map along more objective criteria.
And quite possibly, we'll find that California has much more in common with third world countries than with the first, no matter how rich the rich, and no matter how much the GDP.
Northern Canada is a good comparison because it probably has the lowest GDP per surface unit of any country in the world, but they also have one of the best health care systems, and their work on roads is nothing short of amazing, especially if you take in to account the effect of the climate on the roads there.
If everybody in California (including corporations) would be paying taxes relative compared to other 'first world' countries then such things would be taken for granted.
Until it is solved through taxation everybody, VCs included (who really are only in the game to turn a ton of money in to even more money) has a responsibility to look after their neighbours.