# The linear innovation pipeline 1. A lab/some guys in a garage work on a thing and get it to a point where it is compelling enough 2. They start a company around it 3. That company raises money and commercializes it  The Linear Innovation pipeline roughly mirrors the [[Technology readiness level - TRL]] system. However in the same way that in reality [[TRLs are not monotonic]], and [[narayanamurtiCyclesInventionDiscovery2016]] might be a better paradigm than [[Basic and Applied Research]] - the idea that the pipeline is linear is a fallacy. [[Vannevar Bush]] encoded the linear model of innovation in American Law when the [[National Science Foundation - NSF]] was created but it predated him  https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/zaaron-personal/IMG_3737.jpg ### Related * [[The linear innovation pipeline is more harmful than useful]] * [[Was there a model of how innovations happened before the linear pipeline model came along?]] <!-- #mental-model --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/The+linear+innovation+pipeline) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/The+linear+innovation+pipeline)