sramana mitra, a stimulus package for entrepreneurs

The American economy has definitely seen better days, no secrete there, but how to get out of this mess is another issue. Economic problems manifest themselves in many ways, with the most spectacular being the failures of giant corporations that are supposed to represent the bedrock of the economy. Well, if the giants are failing, why not encourage startups and entrepreneurship to get the economy going again? This is along the lines that Sramana Mitra seems to be thinking in her latest article at Forbes.com.

A quite successful entrepreneur in her own right, having founded and sold several software/web startups, and a strategy consultant in Silicon Valley since 1994, Sramana suggest that what the government really ought to do is give the entrepreneur a stimulus package. The package she is suggesting is an entrepreneurship-friendly tax policy targeted at entrepreneurs, angle investors, venture capital firms, and large corporation. In her article she examines the particular policies for each of the aforementioned groups in detail, but overall they can be summarized as follows: A tax-free pool of income for entrepreneurs and angel investors that can be reinvested into new ventures, an elimination of payroll taxes for small companies, a tired tax-structure for venture capital firms to once again encourages them to take some risks and invest in early stage startups in return for a lower tax on deals realized from those investments, and finally, tax breaks for large companies to invest into small business that in some form or other can in turn utilize the products and service offered by these large conglomerates. These are some interesting ideas indeed and definitely something to contemplate, especially when looking for more of a long-term plan for the country rather than a short-term stimulus package like the last one that was implemented by the goverment.

If you are interested in entrepreneurship in general you might also want to periodically take a glance at Sramana’s own blog in which she covers a vast spectrum of Silicon Valley from web startups, to entrepreneurship strategy and stock discussions, and even the occasional semiconductor blurb. As a matter of fact, her post in mid June which analyzed Cadence’s hostile takeover attempt of fellow EDA tool develop Mentor Graphics caused quite a discussion amongst her readers.