Pretty much this. Look at incubators, they basically take risk to take in companies that have potential. Give them handouts in the form of free or discounted services in exchange for part of the company. Most fail but the ones that succeed pay back $$$ and the incubator wins overall.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
The same could be said for the government. Subsidize industries that have promise and new technologies and bet on them becoming viable. That creates more jobs and brings in more revenue which eventually makes its way back to the province. Even if it's not a 100% return if it creates jobs then that still benefits the economy and keeps people working until other industries pick up.
Want a specific example? Look at the company called Attabotics. They are a robotics company here in Calgary and they started in 2015. They had a simple idea that could heavily improve warehouse storage to make things almost 10:1 more compact that other your typical amazon warehouse. They had a promising idea and a great market, Alberta innovates stepped in and provided funding so they could build a proof of concept system to pitch to investors.
Now? They employ 200+ people in Calgary, many of which are high skilled tech jobs in a growing robotics industry and the company is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That few million from Alberta innovates helped turn an idea into hundreds of jobs and a ton of investment.