[abalone]

> Shouldn't they profit off it?

Not saying they shouldn't profit at all. The question is whether they should pay something back to the government for doing all the early stage investment.

Consider: Seed Investor A puts 70% of the funding in at the earliest most risky stage. Venture Capitalist B puts in 30% of the funding to take it to market. Yet all of the profits go to VC B, save for a small percentage of sales/payroll. Would you call that a fair deal?

Except it's not an analogy. Taxpayers are the seed investor. They are massively subsidizing the tech industry.

Which is made even more ironic by how "Libertarian" and "anti big government" Silicon Valley likes to fashion itself. Silicon Valley! A kind of psychological overcompensation, if you ask me. Silicon Valley is a product of DARPA and government spending.[1] Not entirely of course... just the earliest, most risky, most sustained stage of investment over the decade plus it takes to produce fruit, which is then plucked and brought to market. The question is not whether private industry has a role to play or should profit, but rather should private industry keep all of the profits? I think this makes people very uncomfortable, to admit that the state plays a huge role in our allegedly "free market capitalist" economy.

[1] The High Return on Investment for Publicly Funded Research https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/technology/report/20...