government is the problem. this is a great phone. but it s so much more than that, isn t it? the i phone has become an iconic symbol of american capital list tick greatness, of the kind of job creating innovation that could be unleashed if only government would just get out of the way and let the lords of the private sector to their thing. what if i told you that all of the most important technology enabling the iphone was actually the result of government research? from the lithium ion batteries to the touch screen to the liquid crystal display, the technology that makes the iphone possible was all brought to you not by this guy, but by this one. and that is not even to mention all the tech that makes the iphone smart like gps, the internet and even dear siri. the collective source of apple s success is detailed in the entrepreneurial state, a terrific book that systemically debunks or mythology around the role of government and the role of the private sector in risk
an indispensable role in innovation. that is because government risk taking entrepreneurial is an inconvenient fact if your political agenda centers around lowering tax so is that corporations and venture capitalists can keep all of their publicly supported windfall. after all, how can you justify the top nine apple execs making about 15,000 of their retail employee. if you understand the collective nature of apple s success, how can you look the other way as apple saves them billions in american taxes when you realize that it is american taxpayers that provided the fertile seed foos apple s success. government as effective innovator also didn t mesh so well with an ideology that says government is the problem. it s a the lot easier to justify the screwing of most of merg when you can pretend that most americans were irrelevant to the creation of great corporate success. so our contribution has conveniently been left out of the story. time to rewrite the story.