Howard Dean's campaign for the Democratic party nomination in 2004 was a huge success in the blogosphere, but failedtotranslate into votes in real life.
But in a lecture on what he's learned about innovation, Mike Lynch - who's the founder of another Cambridge technology success story, Autonomy - bemoaned the fact that all the brilliant work done by the university's scientists had failedtotranslate into many big hitters in the FTSE-100.
Now that the government and Russia's central bank have failedto defend the rouble, a hefty devaluation could translate into the loss of millions of dollars worth of investments and loans.
The idea that business skills do not translateto politics would seem to be borne out by the string of businesspeople who have failedto make much of a mark in government.