I'm aware that public/private "sectors" are leaky abstractions, and that corporations and the federal government are deeply intertwined in practice. My core point was that tax-funded entities like NASA and DARPA can sometimes set the stage for later independent innovation in the marketplace.

I dislike ideological, knee-jerk reactions of [governments/corporations] are [always/never] [good/bad]. If there is a distinction to be made, it is between large orgs, small orgs, and individuals, and even then, those distinctions should be seen in the light of trading off strengths and weaknesses, with the possibility of statistical outliers.