I just have to respectfully disagree with the main premise of this paper. There are many small businesses doing extremely well in both defense/government and commercial markets, and there is an incentive to invest in companies that receive non-dilutive funding through SBIR awards. Major defense contractors are well supported in the stock markets. Money is green. The author’s anecdotal evidence of iRobot’s struggles with a hedge fund are not universal and alone do not imply a general problem. Having said that, it is supportable that our national defense in the USA is at risk due to international supply chains without domestic redundancy especially for critical items. Government policy could change this to improve the situation. But the free market must remain free—-and “going public” means just what it says. So iRobot put itself in jeopardy, and so did DoD when they didn’t identify competent alternatives.
