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No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

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Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#121

Post by constantcrying »

terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

It is a totally delusional argument. Companies always could reward their shareholders, stock buybacks aren't fundamentally different from paying dividends to shareholders. The idea that stock buybacks are what caused a decrease in company funded basic science is ridiculous.

Only in very rare cases is doing basic science anything but a total waste of money, viewed from a commercial perspective. Companies should seek to be commercial entities, which operate for profit. Anything else is just self destruction.

Look at Bell Labs, it could only exist because some company decided it could use a money shredder. Bell Labs could not survive the dismantling of the Bell telephone monopoly, because ending that monopoly ended the prerequisite that was needed to allow it to exist.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#122

Post by TimorousBestie »

mplewis wrote: post #85
fidotron wrote: post #64

There's something odd in this argument. If you come at it from a Canadian perspective Canada seriously spent on neural network computer science when almost no one else did (many in AI considered the entire thing discredited and impossible), now the (financial) gains from that are almost entirely in a foreign country. The US science establishment was all about buying and utilizing Russian rocket engines until he-that-…

"real academic diversity" is doing all your lifting here

There’s not enough information to determine what the phrase is supposed to mean in context.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#123

Post by insane_dreamer »

xixixao wrote: post #59
twobitshifter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not why it can’t be done so much as why it isn’t done. Share buybacks allow companies to reward executives directly as their compensation is tied to stock price. If we started not doing that, the priorities might shift, but those executives like things the way they are. Before Tim Cook Apple had never done a buyback - Jobs was always thinking Apple could do better with the money in R&D than paying off shareholders. W…

Dumb maybe question: Why couldn’t the companies with excess profits just pay they employees more in salaries?

they don't want to

the purpose of a company is to deliver maximum return to shareholders; if they're not doing that, then they're failing their fiduciary duty and the shareholders might try to force the company to change its ways

the shareholders want the money coming to them, not to the employees

(this is why the Public Benefit Corporation, "B-Corp" structure was invented, so that the company's stated purpose can be something other than simply generating value for its shareholders)

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#124

Post by nyeah »

terminalshort wrote: post #113
nyeah wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Hard to say for sure. I don't know either of them.

But I'm not casting aspersions on the commenter. I'm responding directly to his implication that if he doesn't understand X then X is false. That's not a thing.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#125

Post by mike_hearn »

JohnMakin wrote: post #87
mike_hearn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because whilst universities claim they do that, there is no evidence to suggest it is true. People genuinely trained in critical thinking would be highly skeptical of this claim. For example, - What exactly is the definition of critical thinking they are using? - Which part of a {computer science, art history, etc} course teaches this? - How is it assessed? - If it's a teachable skill, why are there no qualifications…

I've taken 2 required critical thinking courses from 2 different state schools. They were in the philosophy department. Why do you think they don't teach it? In stanford, for instance, they require taking 2 courses on formal reasoning as a prerequisite for a degree, which invariably includes critical thinking.

I've never heard of anyone being required to take a philosophy course but some universities surely do it. I was curious about the Stanford claim. This is the Ways system, right? Their website says you need to take at least one course in formal reasoning:

https://ways.stanford.edu/about/ways-categories/formal-reaso...

They list a few examples like market design or programming. I thought, OK, formal reasoning maybe, but is that really the same as critical thinking? Then I clicked the "See Formal Reasoning Courses in Explore Courses" link:

https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?q=all%20courses&v...

143 courses are considered to teach formal reasoning. First on the list is "The Questions of Cloth: Weaving, Pattern Complexity and Structures of Fabric (ARTSINST 100B)" which teaches hand weaving on a loom. A bit further down there is "Introduction to Bioengineering" which teaches "capacities of natural life on Earth" and "how atoms can be organized to make molecules". It goes on like that.

I dunno, this doesn't sound like anyone has to study critical thinking specifically to pass the formal reasoning requirements. It sounds like almost anything connected to science or engineering in any way counts. And that's Stanford!

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#126

Post by moffkalast »

7thaccount wrote: post #8
terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

Nothing against research universities as good stuff does occur there, but it just seems like it was such a a huge loss seeing those corporate labs disappear. I think it helps to have scientists and engineers closer to the problem and who don't have to spend a huge amount of their time writing grants and training grad students.

Yeah if you go check almost any major scientific breakthrough of the past century it usually starts with "some guy was working in a corporate lab with an unlimited budget". We're stagnating as a species a lot more, but at least the shareholders got a payout for their hard work of doing literally nothing. Rent seeking at its worst.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#127

Post by hyperpape »

Uehreka wrote: post #118
twobitshifter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not why it can’t be done so much as why it isn’t done. Share buybacks allow companies to reward executives directly as their compensation is tied to stock price. If we started not doing that, the priorities might shift, but those executives like things the way they are. Before Tim Cook Apple had never done a buyback - Jobs was always thinking Apple could do better with the money in R&D than paying off shareholders. W…

Unfortunately CEOs have to do buybacks at every opportunity, because otherwise shareholders will sue them for failing to maximize shareholder value. > Jobs was always thinking Apple could do better with the money in R&D than paying off shareholders. Wall Street did not approve of this position, but Jobs wasn’t one to listen to anybody, so it did not matter. (Head spins) wait what?! No! You’re not supposed to do that!…

> shareholders will sue them for failing to maximize shareholder value

That's quite a bold claim. Do you have an example in which a company/CEO/board was sued specifically for not doing enough buybacks?

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#128

Post by LunaSea »

bulletsvshumans wrote: post #58
twobitshifter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not why it can’t be done so much as why it isn’t done. Share buybacks allow companies to reward executives directly as their compensation is tied to stock price. If we started not doing that, the priorities might shift, but those executives like things the way they are. Before Tim Cook Apple had never done a buyback - Jobs was always thinking Apple could do better with the money in R&D than paying off shareholders. W…

But dividends also result in a concrete financial reward for all shareholders, yes?

> But dividends also result in a concrete financial reward for all shareholders, yes?

Yes, but less because in many countries dividends are taxed more than selling shares after a share price increase.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#129

Post by terminalshort »

intalentive wrote: post #94
terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

I read "stock buybacks in 1982" as shorthand for "financialization and short-term thinking at the expense of long-term gains", which certainly happened across corporate America and Britain starting with Reagan and Thatcher.

You state that as if it is a fact, but from what I see the tech industry has engaged in the longest term corporate strategies I have ever seen. Amazon took losses for the better part of two decades before it showed a profit, and public markets would never even fund a venture like SpaceX.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#130

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

intalentive wrote: post #94
terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

I read "stock buybacks in 1982" as shorthand for "financialization and short-term thinking at the expense of long-term gains", which certainly happened across corporate America and Britain starting with Reagan and Thatcher.

In tech it was the switch from creative corporatism, which is focused on opportunities, invention, and infrastructure, to extractive corporatism and oligarchy, which are focused on scams, exploitation, and the creation of rigid hierarchies of privilege.

We're now in the end stage of the latter in the US.

The US still plays at invention - or rather a few of its oligarchs do - but it's far, far behind what's happening in other countries.

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