I agree, and a problem is that many of the promising companies are sold (for example Dice, Skype and TAT) to large, usually foreign, corporations before they get the chance to grow.
Right, and not only that, a large number of companies move their headquarters elsewhere, such as Ikea to the Netherlands, Spotify to London etc. If I ever start my own company, I'll make sure never to be that greedy. I see the welfare state as an investment in people and businesses. Investment relies on getting paid by a few outliers. What is essentially happening is that when a company becomes successful it just says "well thanks for all the support and opportunity, but now that we're successful we don't really want to pay you back, so we're just going to go somewhere else, problem?".
