11–20 of 256 posts
I have often found it baffling that tech giants, with near unlimited resources to fund all sorts of things, don't establish these kinds of labs. I'm aware that there are many things called something like "{Google, Facebook, Twitter, ...} Labs" but from what I understand they are significantly different from the corporate research labs of old.
Why would ad companies need research labs?
Even disregarding the product reasons, research often makes these companies look good to both a technical audience and sometimes to politicians who value "innovation".
Why would ad companies need research labs?
I have often found it baffling that tech giants, with near unlimited resources to fund all sorts of things, don't establish these kinds of labs. I'm aware that there are many things called something like "{Google, Facebook, Twitter, ...} Labs" but from what I understand they are significantly different from the corporate research labs of old.
The main issue with corporate research is that it's not easy for them to capture the output; it very quickly leaks into the public domain, despite patents. So why bother?
On the one hand, they are kind of _forced_ to do research in one form or another to power the pipelines, so clearly corporate research is still alive there.
However, given the pathetic track record the industry seems to hace, and arguably complete lack of any real innovation (almost all of the drugs in most pipelines are just antibodies or their variants), some form of corporate research rot seems evident here as well.
One problem I see often on pharma side is that it's revealing when the CEO of the org is not a technical person. GSK recruited the CEO of L'oreal as its new CEO. TBH I can't for the life of me figure out how someone who sold lipsticks can make decisions on which preclinical trial has the highest chance of success in a human being. If the CEO of a company is not fundamentally versed in the fundamental technology they make can the company actually be successful?
Companies like Intel and Nvidia and the pharma companies do that kind of research because you can reasonably guarantee that someone will want a faster chip or a better cure for a disease.
But beyond that, what does the market want next? If you can answer that, you can operate a lab. If you can't, then you are just blindly stumbling around. University research is probably also a heck of a lot cheaper as people will work for a lot less if they get a degree at the end of it.
I think they would be better off creating a prize system for problems they want to solve (the return on investment for XPrize is amazing) and letting the university researchers figure it out.
I have often found it baffling that tech giants, with near unlimited resources to fund all sorts of things, don't establish these kinds of labs. I'm aware that there are many things called something like "{Google, Facebook, Twitter, ...} Labs" but from what I understand they are significantly different from the corporate research labs of old.
Microsoft Research is a notable exception
I have often found it baffling that tech giants, with near unlimited resources to fund all sorts of things, don't establish these kinds of labs. I'm aware that there are many things called something like "{Google, Facebook, Twitter, ...} Labs" but from what I understand they are significantly different from the corporate research labs of old.
"Fail fast" is not conducive to good research. It takes persistence in the face of failure.
Disclaimer: I work at FB, but my employment there does not change my opinion. I worked at Uber and my opinion of Uber's "research" was different ;)
Why would ad companies need research labs?