In this episode I talk to Bill Janeway about previous eras of venture capital and startups, how bubbles drive innovation, the role of government in innovation. Bill describes himself as "theorist-practitioner": he did a PhD in Economics, was a successful venture capitalist in the 80's and 90's with the firm Warburg Pincus and is now an affiliated faculty member at Cambridge and the member of several boards.

Key Takeaways

1. Bubbles have arguably been the key enabler of infrastructure-heavy technology.
2. Venture capital may be structurally set up to only be useful for computing and biotech.
3. Most technology that venture capital invested in was subsidized at first by the government in one way or another.

Resources

Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy

VC: An American History

Wikipedia article on Bill

NYT Article on Fred Adler from 1981

Bill's Website

Bill on Twitter