Simon Johnson: evaluation

Transcript context

…Circa 2023, with some more years behind us — apart from wanting to spend more money, how would you improve US science policy for any given level of expenditure? I think that looking for places where you can invest in the basics, and you can imagine that there will be commercial applications. The Human Genome Project is one of our favorites. That was actually turned down by private venture capital in the 1980s because they said, “Yes, you can do this, map out the human genome, but we don’t know how you can monetize it. ” That turned out to be a brilliant moneymaker and a great job creator because the basic science then could be appropriated in an appropriate manner by downstream firms who could build technology-based solutions. I think we got 300,000 jobs out of that, most of which are good-paying jobs. Now, that requires some imagination. That requires some commercial orientation. We are not saying that the government should do what the private sector is already doing in terms of financing ventures. We’re saying, look for those big potential breakthroughs that could have commercial applications and seek solutions that address anything that the private market is not able to do along the way. If the private market can build it, Tyler, let them get on with it, and then we’ll figure out later if there are consequences we need to deal with. I think the problem is, we don’t do enough of the basic science, and we don’t convert enough of that into commercial products. A few questions about the Simon Johnson production function. What is your most unusual successful habit?…

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