Ashwin & Entrepreneurship

How basic research can repair the broken U.S. business model

Apollo program engaged at its peak, 400,000 people

R&D Troubles in the U.S.

calling for the equivalent of a Manhattan and Apollo Projects

IBM, Microsoft, Dupont

“more R&D is going on globally”

“Discovery drives innovation, innovation drives productivity, productivity drives economic growth.”

“Much of the best technical talent has been drawn to the promise of riches from Wall Street and financial engineering. “

“We need to reestablish a culture that rewards and celebrates the scientist who is willing to work on tough problems even if the commercial return is less certain. Given that the U.S. economy is so much bigger than it was 40 years ago, and so much less competitive internationally, 10 or more equivalent corporate research labs are needed for critical mass. The most likely candidates are the top research corporations today—IBM, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, Google, Exxon Mobil XOM, DuPont, Microsoft, Apple, 3M MMM, General Electric, Boeing BA, and others. Many of these companies already have hundreds of PhD researchers and scientists on staff, and while their labs mostly focus on shorter-term development goals, they still retain the spirit of scientific pursuit.”

“TAX INCENTIVES COULD HELP

Consider that the Bell Labs budget peaked at $1.6 billion in 1982 (about $3.6 billion in today’s dollars), and $20 billion would fund, say, three large labs and five smaller ones. Split in some ratio between public and private sources, $20 billion is not a large number. As noted earlier, IBM, Microsoft, and HP already spend $17 billion annually on R&D. If leading companies committed 5% to 10% of those R&D budgets to pure research (up from 0% to 5% today), in exchange for a tax credit or a government match, a new innovation ecosystem would quickly begin to build critical mass. From the government’s perspective, the money put toward innovation today is the highest-return investment it can make.”

Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.

Yes, but… “There is the one thing that concerns me about the universities as a regional resource, however. Michigan is just not doing much to support its knowledge base, the very thing that is helping attract new industries to our region.”

for later reference. Interesting:

“RSS Is The Enemy: The other expense they are worried about is supporting all of the RSS feeds that are migrating to Twitter. The people who run Twitter definitely don’t like RSS, and who can blame them? The big concerns expressed at the meeting were, “What if all feeds went through twitter: would be expensive,” and “feeds are not unique content.” (They are also too slow, but that is another issue).”

This is ridiculous. I agree with GE’s Immelt that an American renewal will come from a culture that celebrates invention over consumption.

From the USATODAY article-

“surplus of STEM graduates is a problem he’d like to have.

“As we get more and more of these technological breakthroughs, there are going to be jobs in fields available that don’t even exist today. If these guys can come out and be those innovators and be those creators and inventors, they’re going to create new opportunities that we can’t even envision or begin to comprehend today.”

Jeff Immelt, GE CEO

The five most common flaws—and how to fix them

1. HERE I AM, NEVER MIND THE PROBLEM
2. A COKE FOR EVERY KID IN CHINA
3. JUST LOOK AT OUR (PAPER) PROFITS
4. OUR TEAM WALKS ON WATER
5. EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL

good review