Why innovation is sequester-proof

[Commentary] This may come as surprise to people in Washington (or perhaps not), but the sequester is hardly a topic of discussion in Silicon Valley. Indeed, it’s not even a trending topic on Twitter.

That is how unimportant short-term government decisions are to innovation. While lawmakers battle over taxes and fiscal cliffs, entrepreneurs are busy solving humanity’s problems so that we can go from debating how we distribute scarce resources to discussing how we equitably share the bounty we are creating. To be fair, basic research is necessary for long term innovation. Most of today’s breakthroughs are the harvested fruits of discoveries made in government-funded laboratories. If we choke off investment in the basic sciences, we will choke off future innovations. So we need to restore funding. The good news is that entrepreneurs aren’t getting distracted by the mindless battles in D.C.-they are still very much focused on saving the world.