Silicon Insider: The Next Four Years

Nov. 11, 2004 -- -- Mr. President:

Now that the election is over (thank God!) we only have about 30 months until the next one begins and we are all once more distracted by stuff that doesn't much matter while failing to attend to a lot of the stuff that does.

Given that brief window, it seems to me that the time might be better spent by all of us worrying less about the things that divide us and more about the things we agree upon. The biggest thing we Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, desire, after security, is a robust, growing economy that creates both prosperity and jobs. Implicit in that is also the very American desire for Progress: to see an endless parade of new products, services (including medicine) and ideas that will make the lives of our children even better than our own.

We know how to achieve this. Small, young entrepreneurial companies are the primary source of new jobs and new wealth in our economy. High-tech companies, mostly electronics, but increasingly telecommunications and biotech, are the greatest source of new products, services and ideas in our society.

We also know, from experience, that these entrepreneurial ventures need certain key ingredients to thrive and keep America competitive in the world. These include a supportive regulatory and tax environment, free and fair competition, venture capital, a strong educational system, secure intellectual property law and healthy securities markets.

Above and beyond all that, it seems to me that we also know two other big things: that entrepreneurial societies only thrive if the culture honors such maverick behavior and the society's largest institutions -- especially government -- establish the ground upon which these start-ups can grow. In other words, a government that protects young companies from the predations of both big companies and bureaucrats, and that invests in large research initiatives that no single company, or even industry consortium, can afford.

With some exceptions, we had just such an environment beginning with the Reagan administration and continuing through the Clinton years. And if it got out of control toward the end, this entrepreneurial era still produced one of the greatest economic booms in human history.

That all ended with three devastating shocks: the bursting of the dot-com boom, the exposure and prosecution of corporate malfeasance during that boom, and most of all, 9/11. For all of its reputation for being pro-business, your administration has been comparatively indifferent to both tech and entrepreneurship. This is somewhat surprising, given that most of the new jobs created over the last year (underpinning the positive labor numbers that saved your reputation on the economic front ) and much of the new military hardware (that made the assault on Iraq so swift and precise) were both largely the product of small new companies. Equally ironic is that the Bushes are a classic American entrepreneurial family: you understand better than anybody how a Texas wildcatter can become not only rich, but president of the United States.