Contrary to the laissez-faire capitalist view, having a national strategy is important. Andy Grove, one of the best strategists of our time, writes eloquently about where US strategy of profit-driven offshoring has gone wrong. My favorite excerpt:
The story comes to mind of an engineer who was to be executed by guillotine. The guillotine was stuck, and custom required that if the blade didn’t drop, the condemned man was set free. Before this could happen, the engineer pointed with excitement to a rusty pulley, and told the executioner to apply some oil there. Off went his head.
We got to our current state as a consequence of many of us taking actions focused on our own companies’ next milestones. An example: Five years ago, a friend joined a large VC firm as a partner. His responsibility was to make sure that all the startups they funded had a “China strategy,” meaning a plan to move what jobs they could to China. He was going around with an oil can, applying drops to the guillotine in case it was stuck. We should put away our oil cans. VCs should have a partner in charge of every startup’s “U.S. strategy.”
The profit-motive is a very strong instinct for corporations, since it dictates their very survival. They will do everything within their powers to influence the public policy, in order to keep the profits flowing. Just like corporations can fall prey to short-term profits at the expense of longevity, government policies can get stuck “applying oil to the guillotine”.
Strategy, Marketing, Orthogonal thinking, Newton's law 