Very nicely put! I have been in discussions with these type of people, several times, to start a company in semiconductors and quantum computing. I was often the only one who can "do" things and it was not appreciated. Academics didn't have the time or will to start a company (and had no industry experience), but wanted to have more than 50% of the shares because the government or EU gave the money to them, in return the university wanted 30% cut because they bring "a prestigious name", bug companies forced on you by EU funds did't want shares but they wanted control (board seat) and IP rights. All these were for <500k seed fund which would barely cover couple of engineers salary for a year!
That’s the typical racket, yes. 20 years ago I saw it as an unfortunate consequence of policy mistakes. But now I’m more inclined to see it as the intended purpose of these systems. ”It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
