Gov. Wes Moore is betting on innovation for Maryland’s economic future: ‘We’ve been lazy’

Anybody who sees Gov. Wes Moore speak in public can bet on his repeating versions of a similar message. 

“I really do believe,” Moore will boom, “this can be Maryland’s decade.”

The state’s chief executive phrased it this way Tuesday morning at Brown Advisory’s offices in Fells Point, soon after he spoke at EcoMap Technologies’ first-ever SuperConnect Conference. He offered similar messages at the Greater Baltimore Committee’s latest annual meeting and his State of the State address, too. 

Of course, no governor would make a negative prediction about their home state. And Moore is quick to point out how many federal agencies with tech-focused missions call the state home. But when it comes to Maryland’s innovation potential, he’s candid that prior strategies simply were not enough. 

“I think we haven’t been imaginative,” Moore said. “And frankly, I think we’ve been lazy.”

Dependence on and comfort with traditional sectors like education, medicine and federally supported sectors (“the eds, the feds and the meds”) made Maryland’s economy less vibrant and lag behind other states, he said. The entrepreneur and business leader-turned-politician wants to support the smaller businesses and founders that he thinks can push the state forward. 

He hit on this message during his formal remarks at the conference, which comes about a year after the death of the startup’s cofounder and former CEO Pava LaPere. From the podium, he recounted his own relationship with her, from meeting the young entrepreneur through UpSurge Baltimore CEO Kory Bailey to his following the company she founded after her passing — a time when EcoMap’s future wasn’t certain. 

“This is a pretty extraordinary story, because a lot of people would[ve bet against them, and they bet on themselves,” Moore told Technical.ly. “And that’s why we’re now watching, I think, one of the great tech success stories that we’re seeing in the state right now — and something that I think is literally just beginning.” 

The governor this year signed the Pava LaPere Legacy of Innovation Act, which earmarks funds to support student entrepreneurs like LaPere. It’s one of several avenues his administration has pursued to fund and highlight entrepreneurship in Maryland. He discussed this philosophy, how to measure success and the government’s role in ecosystem-building during an interview with Technical.ly. 

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

The federal government has put tremendous amounts of dollars into initiatives like Build Back Better, Build to Scale, NSF Engines, EDA Tech Hubs. How is your administration thinking about tapping into these programs while also recognizing that the innovation needs look different around the state? 

I’m a big believer in the idea that you have to be able to bet big on small. Sometimes, people think — when you’re talking about investments and how do you make it easier for business — they think about the big companies. I don’t. 

I actually think about it this way: It’s the entrepreneurs. It’s the ones who have a company that, maybe you have four employees, but that can turn into 10 very quickly, which can turn into 25 very quickly. I like to bet big on small because I just think that if you really want to understand the entrepreneurial hunger, and the people who are easiest able to adapt to the different movements and trends that we’re seeing, and how fast the world is moving, then I think that it’s really is the entrepreneurs. While I understand the role of the large companies and large corporations, I would rather bet big on small. 

The other thing is, we do have a federal administration who’s actually putting capital towards [innovation]. One of the cool things that I think we’re also then seeing is: They’re putting capital, but they’re actually trusting the leaders in local leadership to be able to disseminate. 

They’re like … “The governor knows the difference between what’s interesting to invest in Pikesville versus what’s interesting to invest in in Queen Anne’s better than we do, sitting in our perch in Washington, so let’s actually empower the state and the local leaders to be able to, because they have a better sense of what’s going on.” I think, by doing that level of micro-targeting, by doing that level of ecomapping, you actually can really understand, what are the things that we should be investing in in Allegany and Garrett Counties. It might not be the same thing we’re investing in in Baltimore, Baltimore County, and that’s okay, but let’s actually tailor and target: What are the right investment areas in those spaces that you can actually get that level of outgrowth and return? 

And so I like the idea of being able to say, “How can we essentially geomap the way that the state works, where the specific assets are within the state, and then make the investments in those specific areas?” Because I think, then, you’re going have a larger sense of ROI.

After a year or two, how will you know that all of this federal and state backing for innovation was successful? What are your barometers? 

The normal barometers on success, I actually think we have to be able to have a measurement of adjustment on. Because what we don’t want is for people, a year in, saying, “Well, what’s the result?” But that’s not the way that it works, which means we have to take a different kind of mindset of what government actually frames it as. And oftentimes, decisions in government are made on election cycles; the election cycle is not a business operation cycle. 

And so I think what we have to be able to show [is] what are the specific metrics that we are going to examine that actually show measurements of impact. It might not be speed to profitability, because that might not be the business model. It might not be customer acquisition, that might not be the business model. How are we coming up with distinct ways of being able to, particularly with technology, evaluate whether or not something is successful and whether or not the continued investment is going to work? For example, I actually think that our ability to be able to take almost a B Corp mentality and say, “What is the societal ROI, and how does that then return on the financial ROI?” is something that we can have a unique advantage of when it comes to measurements of the social sector. 

What are we doing when it comes to measurements of collaboration and speed of adoption that our entrepreneurs have a better chance of being able to foster than even some of the large corporations or large businesses that you then tailor? 

I do think it behooves us, as people who are both serving as the governmental partners and in some cases, the underwriters of a lot of these innovations, to be able to say we can actually have a different kind of perspective on what ROI actually looks like. … Government has always kind of been in the investment business, but if we’re going to be specifically targeting, saying we are going to be part of that Series C or Series A round, then we have an obligation to ask different types of questions than a traditional VC is going to ask. 

Why do you think Maryland hasn’t been doing better in innovation, given all of our assets?  

We’ve been very comfortable with the eds and the feds and the meds leading our economic growth. So we’ve almost performed like we’re a blue chip. We haven’t been Google. In the early days, we were McDonald’s. Because we’re cool doing that. 

The problem is that — for example, in the seven years before I became governor, we had grown by 3% GDP. So most people say, “3%, you’re positive.” But the problem is, the average state was growing at 11%. [So] I don’t look at 3% in the absolute. I look at 3% in the comparative, and it means we’re falling behind. All these other states are innovating, identifying new industries, investing in new industries. And here we are. 

We had to change our philosophy, we had to change our business model. Because what we continue to see was that the only thing that was growing was our budgets. Our budget grew by 70%, while our GDP was growing by 3%. That’s not a smart business model, and that’s why, I think, we said we’ve got to readjust our business model.

Anand Macherla contributed to this report.