> Governments giving money as science grants ?

I think there's a place for government to invest and incentivise startups for sure, but man do you ever need to watch it like an eagle or it will quickly devolve into malignant opportunism on the tax payers dime.

As an example, up here in Canada, we have the Scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED) tax incentives program. Basically a significant business tax reduction that any company could get (including those that shouldn't), but it required a ceremony / lengthy and annoying process that was quickly outsourced for a percentage of the gains. So now we have businesses who's sole purpose is to get SR&ED for your startup.

So SR&ED is now mandatory for Canadian tech businesses since it saves you 30-50% in tax. We're talking big boys like Shopify too.

Implementation really really matters, and you need to constantly review these things for abuses or they quickly devolve into a transfer of wealth.

yeah.. Ive noticed a kind of anti-pattern - governments funding various startup programs, which end up being totally useless to _actual_ startups, but great plays for the next level investors [ eg. the real estate investor who rents out the "accelerator space" ]