The investments listed here in the article make this seem like an effort to shore up or incentivize industries or companies that are integral to national defense. One example, in the ongoing US-China trade war one of the strongest moves China did was put [export controls on rare earth minerals][1] which are essential components across technology, defense, and healthcare to name a few. The government investing in these companies isn't ideal from a free enterprise perspective but seems rational from a national security perspective.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earths_trade_dispute

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throwaway27448 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Seems like it'd be a lot cheaper to work with china rather than pretend like they're going to attack us.

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alephnerd an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes. This is called industrial policy, and there is bipartisan support for this. 2008 changed thinking on both sides of the aisle around leveraging state power to build industries.

Plenty of us Obama and Biden alums are industrial policy fans, and there is a similar cohort across the aisle.

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coffeemug an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The issues with this are precedent/slippery slope. Today it's a small stake in a small number of companies, but empirically government initiatives almost always grow. Once entrenched, I would be willing to bet that the government will take larger and larger stakes in a bigger and bigger number of companies until this model becomes a non-trivial, potentially dominant, share of the economy. I can see myself becoming a single-issue voter to oppose that future (although given bipartisan support I'm unlikely to have any options; maybe Rand Paul).

	▲	627467 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Anything is a slippery slope if you resign to it. It's not like governments have never been willing (or forced) to privatize or reduce their roles in markets. We are exchanging ideas on a government initiative

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throwaway27448 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We desperately need a third party to displace one of these two. Having a state interest in industry is of course a great idea—telecoms, power generation, a base level of healthcare providers, pharmaceuticals, base level tech manufacturers are obvious things that should be state owned—but this just seems like an extension of the defense industry corruption (the "military industrial complex") that's plagued our country for many decades. Why am I paying to protect myself from china? Who will protect me from this one?

	▲	iamnothere a minute ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly, few would oppose a stake in rare earths mining or something, but the more likely endgame of this is a government stake in companies like Google and Palantir. Which will inevitably lead to even more influence and “special access” privileges.

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thehoff an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd be curious as to how much the executives at these firms earn (whether it be through salary or equity or whatever else).

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alephnerd an hour ago | parent [-]

In most cases, same as an L6/7/8 SWE at Google MTV but at the upper rungs closer to L8/9/10 EM ar Google MTV. Use levels.fyi to look at the numbers.

Heck, I earn less as a VC today than if I remained a SWE or PM in my niche but with more stress and worse working hours.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Do y'all actually even know PE/VC and leadership salary scales?!?

	▲	protonbob 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think many don’t so why not just say the numbers.

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iAMkenough an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

As long as we're socializing the gains just the same as we're socializing the losses (through taxpayer-funded bailouts), I have no problem.

That's unfortunately not been the reality through Obama, Trump and Biden policies.