The Missing Infrastructure of Entrepreneurship: A Policy Guide for Cities and States
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Governments keep insisting they’re “supporting entrepreneurship,” yet the tools they fund are usually the bureaucratic equivalent of a pep rally: innovation hubs with free Wi-Fi, pitch competitions, and motivational speakers who read the same three startup books as everyone else. These things create the appearance of activity but deliver outcomes only for the handful of
- Published in Economic Development, Startups
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Innovation Isn’t Real Estate: Why Startup Hubs Waste Money
Thursday, 21 August 2025
The garage myth keeps fooling policymakers Innovation is not a real estate play, and your innovation district is likely disappointing entrepreneurs. Yet cities, universities, and corporations keep pouring millions into gleaming new “innovation spaces” and “hubs,” mistaking glass walls and free Wi-Fi for entrepreneurship. To some extent, understandably; startup folklore inspires us with stories of
- Published in Economic Development, Startup Ecosystems
Regional Collapse We Keep Pretending Isn’t Happening
Thursday, 07 August 2025
Something’s gone wrong in the way we structure governance; so wrong that it’s now normalized for elected leaders to turn to govern through coercion rather than consensus So wrong that the people who actually build and sustain the economy (workers, founders, educators, families) are often the last ones consulted about how that economy is governed.
- Published in Economic Development, Regional Development
Stop Funding Accelerators. Invest in Venture Studios Instead.
Monday, 04 August 2025
The most underwhelming moment for an entrepreneur in a startup ecosystem is the ribbon-cutting on yet another accelerator. Confetti flies, politicians pose, local media snaps a shot of the logo on the wall, and everyone goes home to wonder why venture capital still doesn’t show up. If you’re not familiar with why your region isn’t
- Published in Economic Development
Startups Are Not Small Businesses: A Texas Startup Policy Blueprint for Unlocking Capital
Tuesday, 08 July 2025
Published in collaboration with the TexCap Policy Institute, this new white paper is more than another call for “more startup support.” It’s a public policy intervention – one Texas desperately needs if we want to lead the nation in innovation, venture capital, and the next generation of job creation. We titled it plainly:Startups != Small
- Published in Economic Development
Why Cities Should Invest in Startups: The Key to Economic Growth
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Why Startups? Let’s Distinguish Why City Officials Should be Focused on Strategic Investment in Innovation-Driven Ventures (and why most are failing despite trying) It’s one of the most misunderstood yet consequential distinctions in economic development today: the difference between startups and small businesses. Cities talk about “entrepreneurship” like it’s a monolithic idea, but if we’re
- Published in Economic Development, Startup Ecosystems
AI Runs on Yesterday’s Hardware — Quantum Writes Tomorrow’s Policy; The Quantum Playbook
Monday, 02 June 2025
If artificial intelligence is the engine of the future, then quantum computing is the fuel. In the United States, Washington is waking up to that fact. While the headlines are still dominated by chatbots impersonating therapists and AI models hallucinating their way through customer service, the grownups in this room (policymakers, scientists, and defense analysts)
- Published in Economic Development, Quantum