Presidential Briefings | Mariana Mazzucato | The Entrepreneurial State
Channel: World Economic Forum
Date: 25/06/2014

http://www.weforum.org/

"Why are all these funky, creative, dynamic innovative companies, like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook coming out of the US and not Europe?" That's the question Marianna Mazzuccatto says has been asked for the past 20 years. The answer, she says, is not as many think: "too much state, too little market". In this briefing Mazzuccatto explores the role between the state and the market, and asks key questions about risk, return and government's role in an innovative economy. 

It is Mazzuccato view that the state already acts entrepreneurially to drive innovation: "What makes the iPhone so smart and not stupid?" she asks, "Well it is revolutionary technologies that were actually funded by government." Mazzuccato says that public money made all the game-changing technologies behind the iPhone possible - internet, GPS, touch-screen display and Siri. She says it's time to see the state as entrepreneurial risk taker, overdue a social and financial return from its investment in innovation.  

Professor Mazzuccato explains that the state is often seen as a "market fixer", but rarely as a "market shaper". She says it's trendy to talk about "innovation ecosystems", but it's important that those ecosystems are symbiotic not parasitic. Currently governments take the risk of funding long haul innovation, but don't get a share of the rewards. The University of Sussex professor urges policy makers and governments around the world to rethink how they earn back from future investments, so there will be enough money to kickstart tomorrow's technologies.