Hi Peter--

Yeah, I agree that the problem is rarely a lack of ideas. Check out this great essay by Paul Graham, the organizer of Startup School: http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html It's incredibly challenging (and interesting / lucrative / frustrating / risky) bringing ideas to market.

I think that it's in the getting-to-market phase of innovation where the US has a lot of advantages over potential competitors, which is why, despite the lackluster educational performance that many bemoan, we continue to do well economically. But that doesn't mean that the process can't be improved, and I think funding agencies could have a useful impact - hybrid science / business programs, structured industrial internships, and so on.

As for your comments on Wood, my impression of Myrhvold (outgoing head of Microsoft Research when I was there) and of Jung (my boss's boss my first year at MS) is pretty similar. They're smart guys, and they're creative, but they have spent a bit too much time thinking and not enough doing. MSR hasn't really produced a huge amount of value for MS given how much money they have put in, and Myrhvold was responsible for some of the more expensive and useless components of MSR. And Jung's project that I worked on was a very expensive failure - a really ambitious but wildly impractical competitor to WinFS (which also managed to crash and burn a few years later). So I am guessing that IV will remain primarily a patent troll firm with great PR.

Ok, back to doing...