Revive America's innovation economy before it's too late

Voices RO KHANNA, SETH LEVINE AND ELIZABETH MACBRIDE GUEST CONTRIBUTORS

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JUSTIN SULLIVAN Getty Images CHIP MAKER Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, has the largest market capitalization in the world, at $4.32 trillion.

FOR DECADES, the United States has been the world leader in innovation. Generations of business, political and educational leaders evolved a balanced system of public-private partnerships, deep science funding and support for small and emerging businesses. All Americans had a hand in creating a culture that celebrates a unique level of risk-taking and free inquiry.

This system mostly functions unnoticed, but we all benefit from it. Innovation and entrepreneurship are critical to the U.S. economy. These twin engines create jobs and raise our standard of living. Innovative companies founded in the last 50 years accounted for nearly half the value of the U.S. public markets. There are approximately 4.1 million startups in the U.S., which create around 3 million jobs annually. Without them, job growth in America wouldn't exist, as they account for more than 100% of the growth in the number of jobs nationally (larger firms are actually shedding workers).

The foundation of this system has been federal research, which invests in research science long before entrepreneurs and investors see marketable value in any particular line of inquiry. When it comes to innovation, our past success has been built on partnerships between the government and the private sector. Companies such as Intel, Tesla, IBM, SpaceX, Google and Microsoft have benefited from early government contracts, research funding or loans. From Silicon Valley’s origins in Cold War-era defense contracts to the NIH-funded research that led to the mapping of the human genome, public investment has long driven America’s most transformative and valuable innovations.