# DeepMind combines bottom-up research work with top-down strike teams The dominant work mode at [[DeepMind]] is for researchers to ~self organize into project teams and work on the research they think is important (with some filtration by management.) But the ideas are very much coming from the bottom-up. ([[Where do ideas come from?]]) I get the impression that it’s fairly collaboratively interconnected - people are working on several projects at once with several groups of people. Here the goals are perhaps fairly fuzzy. This work mode is reminiscent of how [[Bell Labs enabled free radicals]]. However, occasionally top management (CEO or people close to that level) decide to create a ‘strike team’ to go after a specific problem. My impression is that in addition to the impetus coming from a different place these strike teams also operate in a very different mode from people in the rest of the org - they silo off to some extent and focus exclusively on a very well defined goal. These strike teams were how both [[AlphaFold]] and [[AlphaGo]] happened. One could draw a parallel between this ‘active reserves’ approach and the [[§ARPA model]], where US Academia is the more diffuse self-directed ‘normal work’ with [[DARPA and corporate R&D filled overlapping but different niches]] jumping in to create programmatic strike teams. The clutch question that I have no answer to is ‘how do [[Demis Hassabis]] or other executives decide the moment is right to initiate a strike team?’ Which ties into the bigger question of [[When is an intense deliverable-focused push helpful and when is it harmful?]] <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/DeepMind+combines+bottom-up+research+work+with+top-down+strike+teams) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/DeepMind+combines+bottom-up+research+work+with+top-down+strike+teams)