Introduction: the lost decade -- Regulation: liberating entrepreneurs to create jobs -- The patent office: innovation denied -- Manufacturing: the Banana Republic of Silicon Valley -- Immigration: the global war for talent -- Government-funded research: getting smart, for a change -- Epilogue: is government obsolete?

Serial entrepreneur' Nothhaft has been a high-tech entrepreneur and CEO for 35 years. He asks why life once worked so well for middle-class communities, while now middle-class communities are stripped of opportunities. The answer, he asserts, is that the connection between technological innovation and job creation has broken down, because the wealth created by today's technological innovation is going mostly to just a few founders and venture capitalists rather than to large numbers of employees. The author profiles the nation's current innovation community through the voices of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, inventors, and 'tribal elders' of Silicon Valley. He gives recommendations for nurturing high-tech start-ups, such as loosening tax and regulatory obstacles, revitalizing the Patent Office, bringing high-tech manufacturing back to the US, and government support of basic science and research. Co-author David Kline is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and communications strategist.