[olivermarks]

French innovation is quirky but brilliant IMO - minitel was years ahead pre internet.

For some reason French innovation doesn't spread much beyond France. Concorde (I love that plane so much) was an Anglo French project. A lot of my friends parents in the UK midlands were involved with at massive project, but it never scaled to fleets and eventually withered away after an astonishing amount was spent developing it in the '60s ($2.8 billion in that era's valuations).

Not denegrating French innovation here at all, I just don't think the rigid ENA/Ecole Polytechnique elites are practical or competent in understanding how to exploit and build on great ideas by their countrymen.

[artwr]

> Not denegrating French innovation here at all, I just don't think the rigid ENA/Ecole Polytechnique elites are practical or competent in understanding how to exploit and build on great ideas by their countrymen. I don't disagree that these schools still need to evolve a bit, but you'd be surprised at how much they've already moved in that area. I know multiple people from Polytechnique are heavily involved in entrepreneurship and/or AI.

[olivermarks]

I think my point is that ENA / Ecole Polytechnique people are arguably harming French innovative abilities. Many US entrepreneurs are grass roots college dropout types...

[hef19898]

Airbus, Dassault, just from top of my head.

Also, the US Navy is buying a French/Italian frigate design to replace, sorry, I meant support the littoral combat ships that don't work. The only reason Australia cancelled the contract for French is that, all of a sudden, they got nuclear ones.