Governments And Startups Just Don't Mix

The White House effort to boost U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship faces a divide: government agenda vs. venture capitalism's highly developed profit motive

The White House on Monday, Jan. 31, announced The Startup America Partnership, an effort to boost innovation and entrepreneurship in the U.S. through a program that encourages private companies to offer mentorship and possibly funding for entrepreneurs—but it mostly looks like an opportunity to get a lot of press, with low returns for actual startups. The goal of the program is to "continue to marshal private-sector resources to spur entrepreneurship in the U.S., " something I'd argue is already happening at most of the levels the program plans to concern itself with. It will focus on replicating successful accelerator programs such as Denver's TechStars, expanding entrepreneurship education, and boosting the commercialization of new technologies out of colleges.

The program has $200 million in funding from Intel (INTC), $150 million from IBM (IBM), and at least $4 million from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), as well as partnerships with organizations such as The Kaufmann Foundation and existing accelerators such as TechStars. Facebook plans to help too, by launching Startup Days: a series of 12 to 15 events around the country to provide entrepreneurs with access to expertise, resources, and engineers to build their businesses. Steve Case, co-founder of AOL (AOL), chief executive officer of Revolution LLC, and chairman of the Case Foundation will chair the initiative.

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