# Government procurement and prizes are the same thing If you look at the semiconductor industry in the 60’s, there wasn’t really a ‘market’ for semiconductors - the US military and NASA were the only customers. If the military says “we need a thing with spec X” and we’ll give the contract to anybody who meets the spec first and best, hows that any different than a huge prize. Venture capitalists were and are still willing to fund heavy-R+D companies based on the goal of capturing that government procurement prize so government procurement is a proof point for [[A system that replaces grants with prizes and and loans with prize winnings as collateral]] ### Related * [[Dominic Cummings]] * [[Visions of ARPA]]