Shark Tank’s ‘Mr. Wonderful’ on what North Dakota gets right and Minnesota gets wrong

KXNET reports:

Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, and his team have partnered with North Dakota to invest $45 million into early-stage companies.

…

Called the Wonder Fund, the new partnership looks to make North Dakota a powerhouse for small businesses by providing early-stage investment opportunities for financial and operational growth through the management of O’Leary Ventures.

“We’re in this for the long run. And we think that there is a lot more money interested in coming here, but primarily for the competition of states,” said O’Leary.

O’Leary believes North Dakota has been underinvested. According to O’Leary, that’s because people have not thought about the competition between the states.

“You got to think since the 1950s, almost 90% of venture capital went to either Massachusetts or California,” said O’Leary.

O’Leary now doesn’t consider those two states investable because of their unstable policies and taxes…

Sadly, on Fox Business, O’Leary named Minnesota as another uninvestable state and for the same reason: policy:

O’Leary: I’m here in Fargo, a few yards away, Minnesota, a town called Moorhead. Twenty-five years ago, both towns had 50,000 people in them. Now, I don’t want to get into politics. I want to get into policy. You’ve got policy in Minnesota. You’ve got policy in North Dakota. Twenty-five years later, look at Fargo — a quarter of a million people, second largest Microsoft campus in the country, massive biotech, pharma businesses, ag-tech, you name it — arts, massive education infrastructure, wildly successful. Go across the bridge, the place looks like Cuba. There’s only 30,000 people living in Moorhead now. It’s a wasteland. What’s the difference? Policy.

This is exactly the point I made nearly three years ago in my report ‘Minnesota’s Border Battles: How state policy affects economies at the margin‘. I’ve updated this work for the Minnesota and North Dakota border and tomorrow I’ll be in Bismarck to discuss the findings and in Fargo on Friday to do the same. If you’re free, come along.

H/T to Liberty & Prosperity Blog