Importance of Innovation

Which country has the best government–startup relationship in the world? It’s a surprisingly rich question. And one with no single answer. Last month, the UK government appointed Alexandra Depledge, MBE as its first Entrepreneurship Adviser. Her task: tackling the key barriers faced by startups scaling in the UK - no small feat. Other countries have taken different directions. 🇮🇱 Israel: The Yozma model was decades ahead of its time, producing the world’s highest startup density per capita. It combined government risk-sharing with private VC through programs like Yozma, which offered matching funds and favourable buyouts. It helped create Waze, Mobileye and many NASDAQ-listed firms. Much of this was backed by Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist (now the Israel Innovation Authority), a central force in early-stage tech funding and public-private innovation bridges. 🇪🇪 Estonia: e-Residency turned a small country into a digital powerhouse. Entrepreneurs can set up EU businesses remotely — attracting 120,000+ founders and €67m+ in tax revenue. 🇸🇬 Singapore: The most systematic approach. StartupSG grants and equity (with public/private funds), tax support, and structured business services. It’s the full package. 🇨🇱 Chile: Pioneered the government accelerator model, offering equity-free funding. It’s helped launch 1,800 international startups and build a talent pipeline into South America. 🇨🇦 Canada: Immigration, immigration, immigration. Entrepreneurs securing backing from designated investors can qualify for permanent residency. 🇦🇪 Dubai: Appointed the world’s first Minister of AI and launched innovation-friendly zones like DIFC and Dubai Future Foundation. Policies focus on frontier tech, digital commerce, and global talent. 🇺🇸 USA: Still the gold standard for scale and ambition. While lacking a central startup policy, R&D funding, DARPA, SBIR, and visas like the O-1 create a strong base. Crucially, its risk culture and VC depth do much of the heavy lifting. And then there are the UK and France... one with a new Treasury adviser, the other with unofficial founder back-channels (Xavier Niel and others DMing President Macron). So what works best? Successful models typically: ✔ Share risk (rather than grant cash) ✔ Provide regulatory clarity ✔ Build ecosystems, not just startups ✔ Attract international talent (and support local champions) ✔ Leverage national strengths (digital ID, military tech, tax regimes…) What doesn’t work? Overfunded but underambitious granterpreneurs relying on government rather than markets. Bureaucracy. Pilot programs that never scale. Would love your views. Which countries do this best? And what can the UK learn from them?

In 1966, two scientists got an $80,000 grant from the U.S. government to study microbes in Yellowstone’s hot springs. They basically went around sticking slides in hot mud to eventually prove for the first time that life could exist at such high temperatures. It sounded like obscure science for science's own sake—maybe even like a waste of taxpayer money. But from that research, they discovered a heat-resistant enzyme that years later became the foundation of PCR (polymerase chain reaction). PCR made it possible to rapidly copy DNA—an innovation that revolutionized genetic science. Processes that were either impossible or took teams of experts months were suddenly doable in a few hours. Fast forward decades, and because of that single grant: 🧬 The Human Genome Project was possible. 🧬 We mapped genes like BRAF, including the rare gene mutation I have. 🧬 We developed targeted therapies like Mekinist, designed to interrupt the exact signaling pathway my mutation hijacks. That random federal $80K grant? It led to me not dying. If the U.S. government doesn't invest $80,000 in scientists playing in the geiser mud at Yellowstone over 50 years ago, doctors today wouldn't be able to accurately diagnose diseases like mine and treatment might be limited to blunt, aggressive chemo and the hope 🤞 that it would be effective. Investing in science and research is precisely what makes our country great. Haphazardly eliminating federal grants will weaken our greatest strengths, and could literally result in the loss of lives that would otherwise have been saved thanks to advances made possible by the funded research. [I learned about this story from the awesome team at Radiolab Podcasts WNYC Studios and their podcast about it: https://lnkd.in/g-XJXH_B]

Deep Dive #3 for “Some of My Learnings” Learning #3: Try to create a business model disruption where the incumbent doesn’t have any incentive to respond to you. This was a great learning I was first exposed to in the book that’s a must read called 7 Powers by Hamilton Helmer. Most disruptions tend to be business model disruptions. Here’s a great explanation of the concept that they refer to in the book called Counter Positioning. Basically it is a business strategy where a new entrant in a market establishes a competitive advantage by developing a new business model that is radically different from, and incompatible with, the existing models of the industry leaders. This new model gives customers unique benefits that the incumbents cannot replicate without compromising their existing business. A great example discussed in the book was around why Blockbuster didn’t have an incentive to respond to Netflix because 50% of their revenue was late fees and Netflix with a subscription business model just did without late fees. This lack of motivation to respond to a disruptive attack creates an inherent advantage for the disruptor and the incumbent tends to erode its strategic relevance. Btw, a common myth is that the role of a disruptor is limited to startups. It’s not. It’s limited to mindsets. Great incumbents disrupt themselves and others in the market all the time. Apple is a great example of this. So are many others like Amazon. The cloud transition with AWS was also very similar and materially disrupted compute and storage vendors. This is so important because this asymmetrical shift of value completely alters the customer’s mindset, where they redefine success for themselves. What starts as an intriguing idea for customers eventually becomes a concept that simply can’t be ignored because of the strategic importance of the business model transformation. So every time you think of being in a competitive market, think of business model differentiations where competitors can’t afford to respond to you in kind so they keep debating why your business model is the wrong one. These disruptions are much longer lasting than feature based advantages, that are extremely short-lived if at all. But there is one more important thing here. When you start enjoying a business at a healthy margin and scale, that also becomes exciting for others to run a counter positioning play on you. So if you find yourself in a healthy state, get paranoid about being disrupted and ideally run that play on yourself. If your business is not going well, that means someone disrupted you and you have to think of the next disruption. The cardinal lesson to learn here is that disruption is inevitable. But, it is much better to get self-disrupted than be disrupted by someone else. Don’t be afraid of the fights internally. Be afraid of the attacks externally.

🇨🇭 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝'𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐅𝐥𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐌𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐁𝐞 𝐈𝐭𝐬 𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡 I found this week’s Economist piece “How Europe Crushes Innovation” particularly striking. It argues that high job protection stabilizes labour markets in normal times. But it slows innovation once new technologies disrupt existing ones, since firms tend to stick to less risky, incremental innovations. One example is the difficulty that Germany’s car manufacturers face in adapting to electric vehicle (EV) technologies. The article concludes that this rigidity hinders growth in the EU, contributing to its lag behind the US and China. However, this is not the case for Switzerland. As the graph I created using OECD data shows, Switzerland sits at the very top of the international ranking for flexible labor markets, far above other European countries. At first, this seems to contradict the country's social stability. However, Switzerland successfully combines low formal protection with high trust between employers and employees, strong social dialogue, and a highly educated population. This combination enables firms to remain agile without losing cohesion. Along with other factors, such as excellent universities, this may explain why Google, IBM, and Microsoft chose Zurich for major research and development centers in new disruptive technologies. To me, this is a reminder that innovation policy isn’t only about great universities, R&D subsidies, innovation agencies, or tax incentives. It is also about how societies balance security and flexibility when faced with new technologies. In this regard, Switzerland’s model may be closer to the sweet spot than that of almost any other country.

With public trust in higher education waning, some are retreating to nostalgic ideals, arguing that college isn’t about jobs, but about self-discovery, citizenry, and debate. That might sound appealing to a privileged few, but for most students, it’s woefully out of touch. In my latest for Forbes, I make the case that higher education must do more than inspire—it must deliver, by connecting talent to opportunity.  Today’s students include working adults, parents, and first-generation students—individuals investing time and money to improve their lives through education. If the current model is now showing cracks—if it’s become too expensive, too rigid, or too disconnected from the labor market to deliver tangible value—then we must rebuild it, not retreat to abstract ideals.  Education can serve both intellectual growth and real-world outcomes. It’s time for a system that delivers on the promise of opportunity for all. #HigherEducation #EconomicMobility #EducationReform #FutureOfEducation 

Technology at its best is not about efficiency. It’s about humanity. This image moved me deeply. Doctors used 3D printing to transform an ultrasound into a tactile model— allowing a blind expecting mother to feel the face of her unborn child for the first time. Think about it: the same technology used in factories, aerospace, or prototyping… is here creating one of the most intimate, human experiences imaginable. 👉 The lesson: Innovation is not just about “what” technology can do. It’s about “who” it empowers. When applied with empathy, technology doesn’t replace human experience—it expands it. It gives access where there was exclusion. It transforms barriers into bridges. As we build the future with AI, robotics, and beyond, let’s remember: The true measure of progress is not in the sophistication of the tool, but in the lives it touches. How can we ensure that the technologies we create serve all humans, not just a few? —Pascal #AI #Innovation #FutureOfWork #TechnologyForGood #Accessibility #HumanityFirst

NVIDIA and AMD have reportedly agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of their revenue from AI chip sales to China, to secure export licenses. By all available reporting, this appears unprecedented in U.S. export-control practice.   It’s a striking example of how tech leaders now must wrestle with geopolitics and unit economics, and how national policy will always be as consequential as innovation.   For startups in capital-intensive sectors, these dynamics can’t be treated as an afterthought. US companies like Ascend Elements (domestic battery recycling), Peak Energy (domestic grid-scale energy storage) or Groq (global AI Infrastructure; they don’t sell in China) has to consider from the very start how potential market access agreements or export rules could reshape long-term financial models and go-to-market strategies.   The way you enter—or choose not to enter—certain geographies can determine not just revenue streams, but also unit economics, supply chain design, investors appetite, and even your technology roadmap.   It’s also about discipline: knowing what you cannot control, like government policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, and not exhausting energy trying to change them. But you must watch them closely. Then, direct your full energy toward what you can control: product excellence, operational readiness, trusted partnerships, and the agility to pivot when the ground shifts.   In today’s deep tech world, building at scale means designing not only for physics and economics, but also for the geopolitical terrain you operate in. The companies that win will be those that innovate with eyes wide open—technically brilliant, operationally sharp, and strategically resilient.

Whenever we talk about AI, robotics or quantum, the question underneath is always the same: will this make us stronger or more fragile? In my recent Oxford Martin School lecture, I argued that our prosperity in this new chapter of history will depend on whether we reinvent the economy around innovation and long-term thinking, instead of relying on the model we grew up with. New technologies can lift productivity, create whole new industries and improve supply chains. But if we mishandle them, they can just as easily hollow out communities, concentrate power and deepen inequality. Resilience here means a few things: a more active partnership between government and business; a serious industrial strategy for key technologies; and real support for people to reskill, rather than simply being left behind. It also means dropping the illusion that we can run an economy on five-year horizons. If every tax and spending decision is judged only on what it does before the next election, we will underinvest in the very innovation we need, and drive out the entrepreneurs who would otherwise build the future here. A resilient economy is one that backs new ideas, helps people adapt to them, and looks further ahead than the next set of headlines. Anything less is managed decline by another name.

India’s Patent Filing Incentive Problem: When Filing Becomes a Revenue Model The data from the Indian Patent Office (2020–2025) tells a troubling story. Some institutions have filed between 5,000 to 7,000 patents in five years — yet their grant rates are as low as 0% to 2%. At the same time, institutions like the IITs and IISc show grant rates above 40%. This gap is not accidental. It is structural. In many cases, institutions receive up to Rs. 5 lakh per patent under various incentive and reimbursement schemes. But the cost of first-stage filing is often only Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 32,000. Read that again. If funding is released at the submission stage — not at grant — the system rewards volume, not validation. So what happens? - File aggressively. - File in bulk. - File regardless of patentability strength. When incentives are tied to application numbers rather than granted patents or commercialization outcomes, patents become a financial instrument — not an innovation outcome. The result: • Thousands of low-quality applications • Extremely low grant ratios • Inflated innovation statistics • Public funds converted into filing revenue This is not about isolated cases. It is about incentive design. When NIRF rankings, internal KPIs, promotions, and funding flows reward filing counts, institutions optimize accordingly. The behavior is rational — even if the outcome is damaging. Real innovation is difficult. It withstands examination. It gets granted. It translates into products, startups, licensing, or technology transfer. If India wants to become a serious deep-tech nation, reforms are urgent: - Link incentives to granted patents, not just applications. - Tie funding to commercialization or industry validation. - Audit abnormal filing-to-grant ratios. - Redesign ranking metrics to reward quality, not quantity. Otherwise, we are not strengthening the IP ecosystem. We are manufacturing numbers. Innovation cannot be gamed into existence. #InnovationPolicy #PatentEcosystem #HigherEducation #ResearchIntegrity #PublicPolicy #NIRF #StartupIndia #IndianEducation #IPR

Most companies build policies around control. Ritz-Carlton built theirs around trust… and a $2,000 rule. Every employee can spend up to $2,000 per guest to solve a problem or create a moment. No manager approval needed. That's how you get stories like staff flying across the country to return a forgotten laptop. Or employees diving into the ocean to retrieve a guest's camera. But these moments do something bigger than solving problems. They create the Halo Effect. When customers experience something exceptional in one area, they assume everything else is exceptional too. The food tastes better. The beds feel more comfortable. The entire brand feels premium. This same psychology shows up in unexpected places. Starbucks didn't win on coffee quality. In blind taste tests, they often lose. They won on atmosphere: the music, the smell, writing your name on the cup. The experience made the coffee feel better. Most brands obsess over campaigns and messaging. The smart ones obsess over moments. Because customers don't judge your brand logically. One exceptional touchpoint can elevate perception of everything else. What's the one detail in your customer experience that could create a halo for everything else? It doesn't need to be big. Sometimes it's the speed of your reply, the warmth in your follow-up, or how you handle the smallest request. P.S. Wrote more about this in Brand Chemistry if you want the full breakdown: https://lnkd.in/dWRNvvKJ --- I share #brand and #growth insights daily, follow for more.