08 December 2020

Investing in Rather than Loaning to Startups - What Tesla Can Tell us About the Popularization of Entrepreneurship

People don't need lower taxes once they're successful in order to have proper incentive to create wealth. But they can use help to get started.

In 2010, the Department of Energy gave Tesla a loan of nearly that amount: $465 million. The problem with that is that this was a loan. If Tesla failed (as did Solyndra, which got a loan of $535 million at the same time), we American taxpayers would have lost $465 million. It would have been much smarter to offer the financing for this fledgling company the same way that a venture capitalist would: by taking a share.

Given the rate at which Tesla's stock has gone up since 2010, US equity of $465 million in TSLA would now be worth $61 billion. A portion of that could be recycled into funding for new innovation and entrepreneurship (again, with us taxpayers taking our share in shared equity rather than making loans or grants).

Popularizing entrepreneurship is different from glorifying it. Once upon a time, freeman who farmed their own land were rare. Then it was machinists who worked in factories who were rare. Then knowledge workers who worked with computers who were rare. All were popularized to become more common and normal. If you think we can't do something similar with entrepreneurship, you're probably underestimating human potential.

In related news, the US now has four centa-billionaires (folks worth more than $100 billion).

You may not recognize the name Bernard Arnault but you probably know the name of his company: Louis Vuitton SE, the world's largest luxury goods company. As more people have more money, he gets more money. These are good times for him.



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