The state should act as a proactive, 'entrepreneurial' investor to solve grand challenges, rather than merely fixing market failures.
Over-reliance on private consulting firms hollows out essential state capacity, often leads to expensive policy failures, and creates significant conflicts of interest.
Public investment and partnerships must include strong conditionalities—such as knowledge sharing or pricing controls—to ensure that societal goals are met and returns are shared with the public.
Building and retaining in-house talent is critical for government effectiveness and is a prerequisite for successfully managing complex, mission-oriented projects.
Many foundational technologies of the modern economy, from the internet to smartphone components, originated from ambitious, long-term, state-funded research programs.
1960s
Cites the NASA Apollo program as a prime example of a successful government-led mission that produced numerous commercial innovations, while also noting that NASA's own procurement chief warned about the growing influence of consultants even then [9, 16, 23].
1980s
References the Reagan administration's decision to classify ketchup as a vegetable for school lunches as an example of a narrow, cost-cutting government mindset that is antithetical to ambitious, mission-oriented public investment [21].
c. 2012
Highlights the creation of the UK's Government Digital Services and gov.uk platform by an in-house team from the BBC as a model of successful state capability, contrasting it with a prior failed attempt that was outsourced to Serco [5, 17].
c. 2015-Present
Points to Germany's 'Energiewende' policy, where conditional loans from the public bank KfW successfully directed the steel industry to invest in and develop 'green steel' technologies [15, 20].
2020-2021
Analyzes the COVID-19 response by contrasting the UK's failed, £1.5 million-per-day Test and Trace program outsourced to Deloitte with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, which she praises for its built-in public-good conditions [1, 10, 19].
Present
Argues that a major contemporary challenge is the 'brain drain' of top talent from public research agencies like NASA and DARPA to large private technology companies, weakening the state's innovative capacity [8].
▶The Entrepreneurial State as a Primary InnovatorMay 2026
Mazzucato posits that the government is not just a market regulator but a central, entrepreneurial actor in innovation. She argues that state-led investment through agencies like DARPA and NASA was fundamental to creating technologies like the internet and GPS, as well as commercial spillovers from the Apollo program.
Investors may underestimate the role of long-term public funding in creating new markets and de-risking foundational technologies, often overlooking the government as the initial, patient venture capitalist in high-risk, high-reward sectors.
▶Critique of the Consulting Industrial Complex
A recurring theme is the failure and hollowing out of state capacity caused by over-reliance on private consultants. Mazzucato cites the UK's costly and ineffective Test and Trace program run by Deloitte, a 'terrible' climate strategy for Australia designed by McKinsey, and conflicts of interest involving PwC and Eskom as evidence of this trend.
For analysts evaluating public sector projects, the heavy involvement of external consulting firms in core strategic functions, according to Mazzucato's framework, could be a red flag for potential inefficiency, poor value for money, and a lack of internal state capability.
▶Mission-Oriented Policy and ConditionalitiesMay 2026
Mazzucato champions 'moonshot' policies that orient public and private sectors around a common, ambitious goal. She highlights Germany's use of conditional loans from the KfW bank to create the 'greenest steel in the world' and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine's public-good conditions as successful models for ensuring public investment yields public value.
The effectiveness of public-private partnerships hinges on the government's ability to set and enforce clear conditions; projects lacking such guardrails may see value captured privately without delivering intended societal benefits.
▶The War for Public Sector TalentMay 2026
Mazzucato expresses alarm over the 'brain drain' of top researchers from public agencies like NASA and DARPA to high-paying private tech companies. She contrasts this with successes where governments invested in internal talent, such as the UK's gov.uk platform being built by a team from the BBC's iPlayer, or Barcelona hiring hackers to improve public services.
The ability of a nation's public sector to attract and retain elite technical and managerial talent is a leading indicator of its capacity to execute large-scale, innovative projects and regulate complex modern industries.