As a startup investor I should be excited by the prospect of tariffs enabling a new batch of American companies. But I'm not. The really big successes, like Microsoft and Google, grow out of the founders' own interests, not the prospect of a (probably temporary) price advantage.

There will definitely be *some* founders who are motivated by the prospect of a price advantage. But they'll mostly be like the founders who start companies to take advantage of government set-asides. Those companies don't grow into Googles.