Follow innovation through bell labs * Run into problem with “the system” - can’t fit enough calls into a single cable. More cables are expensive. Want people to make more, better, calls. Problems constantly coming down from the top and *
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§Academia Constraints
Asymmetric career risk
The definition of the ARPA model has changed over time
Current value capture mechanisms are crude
“The System” of AT&T
Bell Labs is one of the few examples of an innovation org that was aligned with its money factory
Problems that require system-level solutions often require massive teams
Top of mind
National labs and other government research centers are a research alternative to universities
Many innovations are not valuable on their own but can be combined to be valuable
Healthy R&D orgs feel like they have very smooth project rampups with high ceilings
AI research is an exception to the decline of corporate R+D
It is easier to have a multipoint mutation in technology than in evolution
We need new institutional structures to fill the role that corporate labs once occupied
Things that are not paper-worthy enough for academia and not product-focused enough for a startup
Profit-maximizing organizational structures can hamstring technologies whose impact depends on them
The boundaries between industry government and academia are fuzzy
Research programs that are constrained from existing