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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

#271

Post by bee_rider »

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.

“While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice.” Albert A. Michelson (yes, that Michelson, one half of Michelson-Morley), 1894

If it feels like there’s nothing for us engineers to research, that’s probably a sign we need more basic research from the scientists!

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

#273

Post by JKCalhoun »

twobitshifter wrote: post #48
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…

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…

And yet when Jobs returned to Apple he blew up ATG (the Advanced Technology Group) that gave us Quicktime, etc. He also shutdown Apple's research library (and gave all the books to Stanford, I believe).

He seemed to have little patience for "scientists" — preferred engineers that shipped shit.

I think that at best he saw research as expensive, at worst he saw it as elitist.

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

#274

Post by light_hue_1 »

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-…

Canada is also reaping outsized rewards for that investment. There are plenty of AI jobs in Canada that never would have existed.

The problem is that in Canada we're willing to invest a little for a long time. But we're not willing to make big bets.

You can raise far more capital in the US than in Canada. So naturally large rewards come to those who are willing to make large bets.

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

#276

Post by CGMthrowaway »

nyeah wrote: post #213
badpun wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dividends work as well for executives rewarded with stock (unless it's options).

Buybacks are sort of pay-in-kind dividends, sure. Nobody really loves returning actual money to investors. It's contrary to nature.

A buyback is literally returning actual money to investors.

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

#277

Post by quantummagic »

Then fund science. Just because the government has done it previously doesn't mean it always has to be like that forever.

Maybe if science depended on the average Joe actually having a living wage, enough to donate some directly to science, the incentive structures of our society would become more healthy than they currently are.

Rich people, worrying about rich people jobs and outcomes, is getting a little tiresome. We don't care about your women's studies "research" grants. Maybe something will actually be done about income inequality, if you want to save the things you actually care about. Until then, let it burn; a lot of us will barely notice the difference.

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

#278

Post by dmix »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #273
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…

And yet when Jobs returned to Apple he blew up ATG (the Advanced Technology Group) that gave us Quicktime, etc. He also shutdown Apple's research library (and gave all the books to Stanford, I believe). He seemed to have little patience for "scientists" — preferred engineers that shipped shit. I think that at best he saw research as expensive, at worst he saw it as elitist.

Wasn't Apple burning money when he joined?

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

#279

Post by vivalahn »

titanomachy wrote: post #75
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-…

Because talent and ideas move so easily between the US and Canada, any useful basic science that Canada comes up with will ultimately be monetized in the country with 10x the population, 15x the GDP, and 100x the stock market and VC funding depth. This could start to change if present US hostility towards all things foreign results in a shift in investment and migration.

Talent and ideas move so easily to the US from Canada*

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

#280

Post by kristianp »

aurareturn wrote: post #267
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 buyback is the same as giving dividends - except the share holder doesn’t have to pay taxes until they sell. To the company, they spend the same amount on share buyback vs giving dividends. I don’t see how this argument holds up. Further more, while some might argue that corporate R&D is better due to being closer to the problem but it is private research and not shared with the world like university research i…

It's not exactly the same: if the company does buybacks and then loses value or goes bankrupt, shareholders never get the benefit of those buybacks.
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