# How was technology research financed before government was a major funder? The post WWII research system is responsible for a lot of the technology [[The US created a research system after WWII that we still use today]] Arguably, a huge amount of technology that forms the core of our modern life was invented *before* this system came into being: cars, refrigerators, airplanes, plastic, blah blah blah. I want to understand better how the system that produced *those* things worked: particularly whether it relied on people creating value that they couldn’t capture. (Tying back to the question of [[Is it dumb for Spectech to be a nonprofit?]]) Coupled to the question of whether There are many anecdotes both of inventors becoming very rich ([[Bosch]]) and dying in the streets ([[Charles Goodyear]], [[Nikola Tesla]]). I’m not sure if it’s the right way to think about it, but if you were to create a portfolio of all of them, would you come out ahead? Some possibilities I see before really answering the question: - New technologies did rely on people (particularly individual inventors and corporations) creating value that they couldn’t capture and ### Related questions - [[How have expectations of investors changed over time?]] - [[Has technology development become more expensive compared to average wealth?]] - Did rich people spend money creating technology in ways they didn’t now? - [[Was technology research a net-profitable activity before the modern innovation ecosystem?]] - [[Did the value capture of corporate labs uniquely depend on being able to integrate tightly into their businesses?]]