What ho, fellow innovators! I’ve just dusted off C.P. Snow’s rather splendid 1959 critique of the literary set who fancied themselves “the intellectuals,” snubbing chaps like Einstein and von Neumann. But between arts and sciences lies a glorious new realm: entrepreneurship! Imagine a third culture where daring souls take splendid ideas by the lapels, give them a hearty shake and set them racing into the marketplace with all the vim of a steeplechase champion. It’s high time we donned our entrepreneurial spats and joined the fun!
On a jolly jaunt to Oxford’s verdant science parks, I spied cranes looming like mechanical giraffes over the spanking new Ellison Institute of Technology. Thanks to Larry Ellison’s princely gift of over £100 million, this gleaming establishment will not merely tickle the ivory towers of research but take spirited equity stakes in sprightly start-ups too. One hopes it will banish that ghastly “valley of death” where splendid British inventions too often wilt for lack of scale-up capital.
Let us not forget our moment of triumph during the pandemic: lightning-fast genetic sequencing of the virus, the brisk rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the timely discovery of dexamethasone, which saved over a million lives worldwide. That was Britain at its nimblest,moving fast, taking bold, calculated risks and showing what we can do when we let expertise gallop unfettered.
Alas, all too soon the familiar squawks returned: whispers that Oxford-Cambridge funding should journey northward, grumbles about renewing old rail lines to Marylebone, and the ever-present chorus insisting profit-making is somehow unseemly. Poppycock! We must cheer on every bold venture and resist the urge to mindlessly dribble public funds rather than back our brightest brains.
If our next DeepMind unicorn mustn’t be snapped up by Californian tycoons, we must rewrite the rulebook, dismantle needless red tape, reward risk-takers in academe, and parade our homegrown heroes into the limelight. In the land that birthed Watt and Boulton, we’re more than capable of fusing innovation with enterprise once more.
So chin up, Britain! Strap on your entrepreneurial boots, embrace this splendid “third culture,” and let’s electrify the world with our ingenuity. After all, the only bumps in the road are jolly opportunities in disguise!
