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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

#131

Post by echelon »

ilamont wrote: post #115

Universities spend ~$109 billion a year on research. ~$60 billion of that $109 billion comes from the National Institutes for Health (NIH) for biomedical research, National Science Foundation (NSF) for basic science, Department of War (DoW), Department of Energy (DOE), for energy/physics/nuclear, DARPA, NASA. Let's talk about the other $49B. I read or heard someplace that at many universities tuition paid by students…

> I read or heard someplace that at many universities tuition paid by students in the social sciences is effectively subsidizing the STEM fields

Diploma mill universities in my state are consolidating the smaller STEM universities and trade schools to build football and sports programs, gyms, and "lifestyle" amenities.

This university in particular [1] mints basket weaving degrees and has used consolidation to build sports programs [2] and lavish facilities for sports.

It's also been a revolving door of politician to high-ranking, high-compensation executive staff positions.

This university [3] has used funding to acquire properties from the state, such as the 1996 Olympic Stadium [4].

Neither of these universities does real, impactful research. The latter is ranked as an R1, but everyone at the "real" R1s in our state will tell you this is a fabrication. They're diploma mills and extract six figures from their student body. They turn this money into sports facilities and upper level faculty pay.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_State_University

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_State_Owls_football

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_State_University

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Olympic_Stadium

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

#132

Post by terminalshort »

dzonga wrote: post #96
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…

share buybacks are sort of a voting mechanism - it shows the company has no other uses for the money than to reward shareholders - hence pumping stock price up. if the company has a vision - then reinvesting that money into research or what else is better. it might reap the benefits, it might not. companies use buybacks if they can't do anything productive with the money - Apple is a recent example.

And before buybacks they used distributions, which have always been allowed, so there has been no change there.

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

#133

Post by boroboro4 »

cgh wrote: post #104
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Share buybacks allow companies to reward executives directly as their compensation is tied to stock price. To be fair share owners also like the stock price to go higher, they also like dividends (and higher dividends would tend to drive the stock price higher too), but an X% increase in share price caused by buybacks is favoured over an X% dividend because it isn’t immediately taxed.

Also, I believe in the US ordinary dividends are taxed at the income tax rate which is much higher than the capital gains rate.

It doesn’t make sense to compare ordinary dividends to capital gains - either compare ordinary to short term gains or qualified to long term gains.

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

#134

Post by some_guy_nobel »

ilamont wrote: post #115

Universities spend ~$109 billion a year on research. ~$60 billion of that $109 billion comes from the National Institutes for Health (NIH) for biomedical research, National Science Foundation (NSF) for basic science, Department of War (DoW), Department of Energy (DOE), for energy/physics/nuclear, DARPA, NASA. Let's talk about the other $49B. I read or heard someplace that at many universities tuition paid by students…

Raising (already record high) tuitions that have far, far outpaced wages and inflation should be a last resort. You can start by cutting bloated admin, reduce fraudulent procurement/graft (e.g. the $700k Berkeley Chancellor's fence: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/700k-iron-fence-co...), vanity construction, study abroad admin budgets that dwarf actual student grants, and the executive compensation/perks by admin.

And this is just mentioning a sample of admin bloat, never mind the other areas.

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

#135

Post by galoisscobi »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #53
galoisscobi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand, can you elaborate? I’m trying to understand your perspective. New college grads I generally meet and work with are bright, hard working, curious and have a deep desire to learn. I don’t think we’re having the same experiences so I want to know more about yours.

Most fresh college graduates I have worked with are anxiety ridden wrecks incapable of developing skills on their own and lack fundamental knowledge of industry practices.

Makes sense. I think they're lucky to be around you. Since you're hanging out on HN, I'd imagine you care about tech, doing things well and have a natural curiosity.

Back when I started out, I was deep in debt, insecure about my skills and being around highly skilled people who had many more years of experience only deepened those insecurities. Luckily, people were kind and patient with me and gave me the apprenticeship I needed. They deeply cared about technical expertise and doing things well, probably like you if I am guessing right. I have my dream job today, and I am in a position to mentor new grads. I continue to pay it forward as the senior engineers did when I started out. Not all my colleagues do this, but I see so much potential around me and I try to grow it. It's one of the most satisfying when I get a note from a new grad/junior engineer on how they've grown after our work together.

Thank you for caring!

On a side note, I can't imagine the anxiety they must go through now between the economy being what it is and AI exacerbating the gaps in technical skills. Seems like a scarier time than when I graduated. It's harder to mentor in this environment, but it's a fun challenge to learn how to mentor in this environment.

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

#136

Post by cjbgkagh »

fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #108
cjbgkagh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked in corporate labs they really were great and it's a shame they're disappearing. It's not only share buybacks, I would include offshoring, DEI, and a consolidation of management power as major factors in the destruction these labs. The pipeline has been so bad for so long now that it would take a miracle to get things started again. The last org I worked at offshored the most promising work to China. Due…

I'm not really seeing how the blacks and women ruined corporate research, can you expand on that more? Are you saying they were all retarded and without enough white, Asian, and Indian men nothing could be accomplished?

Since they don't make up 50% of the pipeline the enforced restriction necessitates hiring further down the ability rank even if you are to assume that all races and all sexes have the same ability / aptitude. And it also means for every non-minority male you need a minority female and those are very hard to get.

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

#137

Post by constantcrying »

sherinjosephroy wrote: post #111

[flagged]

>The argument that the shift from corporate research labs (Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, etc.) to stock buybacks killed basic science investment is compelling.

It is not compelling at all. The difference between dividends and share buybacks are not big enough to explain this at all. The argument is totally absurd, companies could always reward their shareholders with their profits.

Bell Labs did not end because of share buybacks, it ended because Bell was broken up and their free money printer did no longer exist.

>If the US is increasingly relying on universities for foundational research, and corporate R&D is only focused on short-term, applied projects, we're definitely running the innovation engine on fumes.

Why? This is just total nonsense. The only difference is the physical location of basic researchers. And that the government decides what to fund. That is literally it.

Basic university research is still funded by corporations. Only they are paying the money to the government, which then decides what to fund.

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

#138

Post by jleyank »

If you want new disease treatments and cures, you need to fund applied science (using the aforementioned definitions). Follow-on compounds can almost be engineered, but finding novel targets and coming up with candidates is a research problem. And dealing with the side-effects that appear can flip back from engineering to science. The Ozempic class of compounds has done wonders driving research in obesity and (I think) addictive behaviours.

Bringing it to market requires money and management and luck. Many/most of the promising candidates fall out along the way.

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

#139

Post by throw4847285 »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #122
mplewis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

They seem to be opposed to peer review?

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

ActorNightly wrote: post #63
dkyc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even clear that the premise is true. There's lots of 'research' done in the big tech companies. The biggest reason why companies don't seek to emulate "Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE", is probably that it reads like a list of textbox examples of "companies that failed to execute on their research findings", so clearly there was something wrong with this approach.

The bigger problem today is that there is simply nothing more left to research. Everything that is being worked on are at most optimizations, which allways have a dollar spent vs dollar returned amount on them.

[deleted]
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