Startups: It’s NOT About R&D

European Straits #41

Dear all,

Last Friday, I had a meeting with Bruno Le Maire, the French minister in charge of finance and the economy. He got to know me through my op-ed columns in the French magazine L’Obs and wanted to provide insights on his policy agenda and hear my opinion on certain topics.

We agreed on many things: the nature of the current techno-economic transition; the problems that European firms encounter when trying to compete on the global stage; the need to reinvent many governmental positions, starting with industrial policy and antitrust policy; the difficulty of making the government work in the horizontal world of ubiquitous computing and networks.

However, we disagreed on one point: the importance of orchestrating R&D as a cornerstone for economic policy. Le Maire is rightfully worried by Europe being late with cutting-edge technology such as driverless cars and artificial intelligence. However, I think his conclusion is mistaken. What we should do to make up for this lateness is NOT …