§Academia Constraints

Decoupling from market discipline is like cave diving

Current value capture mechanisms are crude

When should an idea that smells like research be a startup?

§Corporate R+D Constraints

Bell Labs is one of the few examples of an innovation org that was aligned with its money factory

Startups are good at point changes

Systemic decay theory of stagnation

Ideally corporate R+D enables work on a general purpose technology before it’s specialized

There are many tight feedback loops built into the ARPA model

Things that are not paper-worthy enough for academia and not product-focused enough for a startup

One function of a private ARPA is to fill in the gap once filled by corporate R+D

There are many important innovations that are just bad investments

Startup Constraints - essay

The market in for-profit organizations is fairly efficient

Profit-maximizing organizational structures can hamstring technologies whose impact depends on them

It is easier to have a multipoint mutation in technology than in evolution

PARPA could walk the line between profit and non profit

Startups  need to spend effort on sales, marketing, and productization

Startups and Academia are bad at addressing structural constraints

The Architected Innov􏰂ation Institute - Engineering Scientific Revolutions

An institution riffing on the ARPA Model could enable paradigm shifts that are not happening

# §Startup Constraints
- [[Startups need to make a lot of money or have a lot of users]]

- [[Startups need to conform to investor timescales]]
- [[Venture capital doesn’t work for things that only realize their value on long timescales]]
- [[Startups need an exit strategy]]
- [[Startups need a great story]]
- [[Startups need to produce a scalable product]] 
- [[Startups need to break development into correctly sized stages]]
- [[Startups need specific growth curves]]
- [[If a project has massive possible upside and low enough risk it is venture fundable]]
- [[Scalability and venture fundability happens when you turn a process innovation into a tool innovation]]
- [[Startups are good at point changes]]

- [[Startup Constraints - essay]]

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§Startup Constraints

# If a project has massive possible upside and low enough risk it is venture fundable
Software companies basically have infinite possible upside and you can’t get higher than infinity.



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It is hard for a private ARPA to capture value without hamstringing impact

A normal for-profit structure would hamstring an ARPA-riff

# The market in for-profit organizations is fairly efficient
The barriers to creating a for-profit organization boil down to initial costs, talent, and long term funding. All of these barriers have become low enough that even crazy ideas that are good investments should tend to get funded.

The costs to starting a company are low - even if you need a lot of equipment because it is relatively easy to borrow lab space or equipment time. The startup ideology has pervaded society to such an extent that even [[People who should not be starting companies are starting companies]].

Socially, entrepreneurs are revered and people have been so indoctrinated that ‘stupid’ ideas can become billion dollar companies that there isn’t much inhibition the talent front.

On the funding side, there are more early-stage VCs than ever and despite the fact that technically [[Venture capital doesn’t work for things that only realize their value on long timescales]], the sexy success of SpaceX has encouraged at least some of them to bet on long term projects that could be wildly valuable. [[If a project has massive possible upside and low enough risk it is venture fundable]]. Additionally, angel investing has become a status symbol in some circles, pushing capital’s risk tolerance even farther. 

In combination these factors mean that the for-profit ventures that would be good investments but are not being started or funded are rare and on the margin. Of course, [[There are many important innovations that are just bad investments]].

Perhaps the place where they are inefficient is actually at the super capital-intensive end. The [[Long Term Stock Exchange (LTSE)]] will test this. 

### Counterargument
The counterargument to this assertion is that the success stories of impactful companies do seem to be incredibly contingent. Success depends on the right people being in the right place at the right time and being willing to doggedly persevere. Are there *systemic* ways to increase the rate of these contingent events?

### Related
- [[§Startup Constraints]]
- [[It is hard for a private ARPA to capture value without hamstringing impact]]
- [[There are many important innovations that are just bad investments]]



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Benʼs working notes

If a project has massive possible upside and low enough risk it is venture fundable

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