"Problem with this is that governments are very bad at picking corporate winners."
The "picking winners" cliche is easily disproved, and shows a complete misunderstanding of how markets work.
University of Sussex economist Mariana Mazzucato, in her book, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, explains:
“Every major technological change in recent years traces most of its funding back to the state."
The parts of the smart phone that make it smart—GPS, touch screens, the Internet—were advanced by the Defense Department. Tesla’s battery technologies and solar panels came out of a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Google’s search engine algorithm was boosted by a National Science Foundation innovation.
“The National Institutes of Health have spent almost a trillion dollars since their founding on the research that created both the pharmaceutical and the biotech sectors."
Etc etc etc