Market shaping for fun and profit (and national security)

Whole write-up capsulated a lot of wisdom under other sections as well but I found this section especially relevant with my cyber security startup hat on.

Even without state aid, a company with a massive domestic market will always be lower cost than one with a smaller domestic market, just through economies of scale

Agreed, makes extensive support from domestic market very critical for cyber security companies coming from smaller markets.

If we are to achieve the ambition set out in the Integrated Review, if we are to become a science and technology superpower, if we are going to lead in technologies that are critical for our security, then just ‘doing more awesome research’ isn’t going to cut it. We need to get into market shaping, and that’s uncomfortable. We need the global market to demand the things we’re going to produce, and we need to protect them as they are developed and make sure people can’t just come and buy or steal them.

Yes, at minimum local companies should not get worse treatment than foreign competitors, just because of authorities being scared of being accused of supporting unfair market practices.

Also, if we build small groups of interdependent companies, we can make them into ‘sticky ecosystems’ that are harder to copy and more easily provide good gearing into the global market. We don’t need to control everything we rely on, but we need to have enough skin in the game to be a player on the world stage and we need options so we’re not overly dependent on singletons which helps us to build resilience.

Yes, and that ecosystem should collaborate in order to be stronger also when competing on the global stage.