The best thing the US government does for tech startups is completely staying out of their way. There is, however, a Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit which pretty much every company makes use of.
In the EU however we think that shelling out a billion - peanuts in the grand scheme of things - and then some certificates which amount to a big thumbs up (“Ursula von der Leyde and 25 others like this”) will create a vibrant startup ecosystem.
I’ve been extremely supportive of the EU all my life but I’m starting to wonder if politicians are in any way connected to the ground-level reality of business and personal life.
That might be true for consumer tech startups, but they do have programs to help startups. SBIRs, STTRs, FAST, and other programs (not to mention funding from agencies like DARPA) are all run by the federal government. It’s just that they typically invest in things that likely wouldn’t be funded by VCs due to high risk & limited market (e.g., advanced technology development for the military or space).
Except when they could do with getting in the way, but then don’t.
Remembering recent stories there have been problems with adtech, spyware (same thing?), tech monopoly behaviour, privacy violations, treatment of workers, dubious automation etc.
