We need to do a better job of funding young and talented scientists to work on their most ambitious, highest expected value ideas. We need to experiment with new funding and organizational models so that it’s easier to translate novel ideas from the laboratory to the market. Katalin Karikó, the groundbreaking heroine in the development of mRNA vaccines, was regularly turned away by our science funding institutions throughout the 1990s. We need to make sure the next generation of Dr. Karikós receive the support they need for novel research.
- No location available
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Nearly half of our billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants, and 80% featured immigrants in a core product design or management role. Though immigrants make up only 18 percent of our workforce, they produce 28 percent of our high-quality patents, comprise 31 percent of our Ph.D. population, and have won 38% of our Nobel Prizes in science.
- No location available
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But public policy isn’t only a bottleneck — it can also be a catalyst for innovation, operating through both “push” and “pull” mechanisms. The traditional push mechanisms include direct funding for R&D through grants and other subsidies that defray the cost of research (federal R&D funding was $139 billion in 2019). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA alone deserves at least partial credit for funding the development of mRNA vaccines, weather satellites, GPS, drones, stealth technology, voice interfaces, the PC, and the internet.
Pull mechanisms have yet to be used to their full potential. These tools include innovation prizes, advance market commitments (AMCs) and milestone payments. The two leading examples of success with AMCs are the pneumococcal vaccine and the COVID vaccine via Operation Warp Speed. The America COMPETES Act allows any agency head to authorize prize competitions up to $50 million and the federal government has conducted about 1,000 such competitions since 2010. Ideal policymaking is about removing as many bottlenecks as possible and using both push and pull mechanisms to shape and accelerate the path of technology.)
- No location available
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Washington has a reputation for gridlock and partisanship. According to Gallup, only 12% of Americans have either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress. But this is partly due to a paradox: the issues that get the most attention in the media are often the ones that are least likely to gain traction in legislation, and vice versa.
- No location available
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- [note::See: bikeshedding & privileging the question]

These bills passed not on a wave of mass demonstrations in the street — but because they avoided activating partisan energy that would have unnecessarily polarized the issues and bundled them into the ongoing culture war. In the great partisan tug-of-war match, a surprising amount can happen by focusing on pulling the rope sideways.
- No location available
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Though the U.S. has been stagnating, we are still uniquely positioned to push out the frontier on science and technology. With the rise of authoritarianism, it is more important than ever that the U.S. remains the R&D lab for the world. We are the only big, immigrant-friendly, liberal democracy. And as such, it is our moral responsibility to shape the development of new technologies. These three factors are essential for guiding technology on a path that enables rather than smothers human flourishing.
- No location available
-

We need to do a better job of funding young and talented scientists to work on their most ambitious, highest expected value ideas. We need to experiment with new funding and organizational models so that it’s easier to translate novel ideas from the laboratory to the market. Katalin Karikó, the groundbreaking heroine in the development of mRNA vaccines, was regularly turned away by our science funding institutions throughout the 1990s. We need to make sure the next generation of Dr. Karikós receive the support they need for novel research.
- No location available
-

Nearly half of our billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants, and 80% featured immigrants in a core product design or management role. Though immigrants make up only 18 percent of our workforce, they produce 28 percent of our high-quality patents, comprise 31 percent of our Ph.D. population, and have won 38% of our Nobel Prizes in science.
- No location available
-

But public policy isn’t only a bottleneck — it can also be a catalyst for innovation, operating through both “push” and “pull” mechanisms. The traditional push mechanisms include direct funding for R&D through grants and other subsidies that defray the cost of research (federal R&D funding was $139 billion in 2019). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA alone deserves at least partial credit for funding the development of mRNA vaccines, weather satellites, GPS, drones, stealth technology, voice interfaces, the PC, and the internet.
Pull mechanisms have yet to be used to their full potential. These tools include innovation prizes, advance market commitments (AMCs) and milestone payments. The two leading examples of success with AMCs are the pneumococcal vaccine and the COVID vaccine via Operation Warp Speed. The America COMPETES Act allows any agency head to authorize prize competitions up to $50 million and the federal government has conducted about 1,000 such competitions since 2010. Ideal policymaking is about removing as many bottlenecks as possible and using both push and pull mechanisms to shape and accelerate the path of technology.)
- No location available
-

Washington has a reputation for gridlock and partisanship. According to Gallup, only 12% of Americans have either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress. But this is partly due to a paradox: the issues that get the most attention in the media are often the ones that are least likely to gain traction in legislation, and vice versa.
- No location available
-
- [note::See: bikeshedding & privileging the question]

These bills passed not on a wave of mass demonstrations in the street — but because they avoided activating partisan energy that would have unnecessarily polarized the issues and bundled them into the ongoing culture war. In the great partisan tug-of-war match, a surprising amount can happen by focusing on pulling the rope sideways.
- No location available
-

Though the U.S. has been stagnating, we are still uniquely positioned to push out the frontier on science and technology. With the rise of authoritarianism, it is more important than ever that the U.S. remains the R&D lab for the world. We are the only big, immigrant-friendly, liberal democracy. And as such, it is our moral responsibility to shape the development of new technologies. These three factors are essential for guiding technology on a path that enables rather than smothers human flourishing.
- No location available
-