For about a decade beginning in the late 1990s, US productivity surged, growing at an average of 2.5 percent and pulling America ahead of advanced economy peers (Exhibit 15).98 US productivity had not grown so fast since the mid-1960s. Behind this productivity jump was the information technology revolution, which both deepened capital by spurring investment and bumped up total factor productivity.99 Since 2005, productivity growth has cooled, but it has remained about 0.9 percentage point above levels in other comparably sized economies-about 1.3 percent versus Innovation increasingly flowered in ecosystems of universities, venture capital-funded start-ups, and larger firms. Venture capital, a new development of this era, set the United States and its ecosystems apart. In 1995, the nation invested $4.8 billion in VC versus Europe's $3.0 billion; by 2000, at the height of the tech boom, the United States was investing $100 billion annually, more than five times Europe's $20 billion. Today, annual VC investment in the United States is more than ten times higher than in Europe.00 Although VC-backed firms account for less than O.5 percent of all new firms each year in the United States, seven of the ten largest publicly traded companies in the world by market capitalization were originally backed by VC.101 knowledge ecosystems. These "superstar" cities have anchoring sectors and, often, universities. Their productivity has continued to push them ahead of the pack. The three US cities with the highest productivity today—San Jose, San Francisco, and Seattle—also had 50 percent higher productivity growth than the average US city over the past 20 years.102 In the 1990s, the United States pulled ahead of other major economies in At 250, sustaining America's competitive edge