The false assumption you're making is that the ambition of the program is to replicate the success of Silicon Valley or that anything short of that is not worthwhile.
Chile wins if this program generates positive ROI on the investment, even if it generates only 1% of success of Silicon Valley.
Economic stimulation, if done properly, works. I find it amazing that a government initiative makes so much sense and is executed, as far as I can tell, so well, so big props to Chilean government for doing that.
Given the number of times I've heard the Chilean government talk about establishing a Chilean "Silicon Valley", I think we can all safely assume that's more or less what they're trying to do.
As someone who has been living and working in Chile for more than 10 years now, I'm not at all surprised to see them throw money at the issue yet again, instead of working on changing the way things work. But I've already talked about that stuff before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2068429
Chile wins if this program generates positive ROI on the investment, even if it generates only 1% of success of Silicon Valley.
Economic stimulation, if done properly, works. I find it amazing that a government initiative makes so much sense and is executed, as far as I can tell, so well, so big props to Chilean government for doing that.