# Asymmetric career risk impacts corporate R+D Someone always needs to go out of their way to make the output of a corporate R&D lab mainstream because [[R&D orgs are always on the side of an org chart - The lab is always separated from the mothership]] and [[There is rarely a default path for R&D output to become mainstream]]. [[Asymmetric career risk]] is especially acute for this person because it is never ‘their job’ to push the technology through. The solution to depending on asymmetric career risk for new things to ram their way into a company is to [[Manage the Transfer not the Technology]], but setting that up in the first place is going against the stream. It’s just easier to have [[Innovation Theater]]. In the late 2010’s companies tried to address this problem by creating “innovation teams.” From conversations with people at these arms - there is still no default bridge crosser. If you look at the heralded labs of the 20th century like [[Lockheed Skunkworks]] and the [[Rad Lab]] many of them came within a hair of failure and only succeeded because of a champion. This is also a problem for startups trying to sell into large companies. [[Asymmetric career risk]] happens across all levels of an organization. CEOs are fired by boards for trying weird things as often as engineers are fired by managers for not putting their heads down and working on what they’re supposed to. ### References * [[Conversation with Kelly 12/2]]