Episode 16: The Policy Gap
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Episode 16: The Policy Gap
-
Narrated by:
-
By:
Summary
First published in A Reasonable Rant: Private Edition (members-only subscription) on 6 Mar 2026.
If government policy can accelerate startup formation… what actually determines which companies survive?
In this episode of A Reasonable Rant, Neo examines the gap between what innovation policy is designed to produce and what it actually delivers in practice. Drawing on a China-focused dataset of over 1,000 startups and 300+ investors, the episode breaks down how coordinated policy, capital, and industry can generate massive startup activity while leaving conversion to durable businesses uneven and delayed.
This isn’t a critique of policy effectiveness. It’s a closer look at system design. Why formation is easy to measure, why conversion is not, and how capital, incentives, and competition shift pressure later in the lifecycle. Because once you understand where that pressure actually sits, the question changes.
Not how much innovation is being created… but what kind of outcomes the system is built to produce.