In spirit it's to take big bets on things that may not work; the transistor radio, the microprocessor. The eventual goal is to push forward something potentially for the social welfare such as say a logarithm table or star catalog in an earlier time.
Companies like Uber or Netflix don't do this. They're platform for rent-seeking of services or durable goods (or perhaps call it "assisted living for people under 60")
Tech investing (big bets in say, a new solar panel manufacturing technique) has really been replaced with very conventional investing that uses technology (a platform to say rent panels out and have the rental fees paid by the power sold back to the utility company).
Sand Hill Road has lost its mojo. I'm part of the problem. The rentier multisource funding model sounds way more attractive to me then some technical way to reduce manufacturing costs by say 80%.
Our minds have been polluted. We need to get back to the fundamentals and avoid the lemon squeezing extractive stuff. That's not how we move things forward and it's part of the reason many people have lost faith in capitalism; it's become too much a siphoning of the commons instead of a servicing to it. It needs a reorientation.
