Your estimation of the military is way off, I suspect.
Hey, these days the military is using consumer grad iPads, because they are cheaper and good enough.
There are more things in heaven and earth than just the military and SV.
One big example that's often brought up of military tech leading the way is programmable computers. And, yes, in our history that's what happened. But International Business Machines was hot on their heels purely for commercial computing. (If the militaries of the world hadn't blown up so many resources, business would have likely come up with programmable computers a few years earlier, thus completely eliminating the gap.)
I am not saying that any and all tech comes from the military. I am saying that the military is and always has been the driver for innovation more so than any other industry. IBM derives a large share of its profits from tech originally funded by the military for military purposes. The roads we drive on, the cars we drive, the semiconductors we use, the tampons and pads we use, are all pretty direct examples. Lots are indirect. The military also uses duct tape and drives Jeeps. Both were originally invented and built for the military in 1940s. DARPA is still a huge contributor to what we will be taking for granted 20 years from now. There are other researchers of course, I'm not disputing that. This year's National Science Foundation in the US has a budget of $7.1 billion, while military research combined totals $59 billion.
Hey, these days the military is using consumer grad iPads, because they are cheaper and good enough.
There are more things in heaven and earth than just the military and SV.
One big example that's often brought up of military tech leading the way is programmable computers. And, yes, in our history that's what happened. But International Business Machines was hot on their heels purely for commercial computing. (If the militaries of the world hadn't blown up so many resources, business would have likely come up with programmable computers a few years earlier, thus completely eliminating the gap.)