My longtime collaborator Dave Patterson (long-time faculty at @UCBerkeley, @TheOfficialACM Turing Award winner, and fellow @LaudeInstitute board member) wrote a very good op-ed about how continued investing in basic science and technology research is essential for the U.S. Dave describes the government funding his labs received, but also the impact: "For decades, my research received support from the NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, through grants and Ph.D. fellowships. All told, American taxpayers invested just under $100 million in the labs I helped lead. Accounting for inflation, technologies that came out of them went on to generate over $1 trillion in product sales. That is a 10,000-to-1 return on investment to the public and surely at least 1,000-to-1 return directly back to the government in taxes. Not from luck, but from decades of public investment." ... "Every American taxpayer is a silent shareholder in that success. If we walk away now, we lose not just future breakthroughs but also what we have already earned." Continuing to invest in basic research in the U.S. is what leads to these sorts of extraordinary outcomes. thehill.com/opinion/technolo…