5 ms·
So why would any private company fund such research?
by Robotbeat 7y ago
So why would any private company fund such research?
- ryandrake 7y agoBecause the research would benefit them? If I offered you an deal that paid you $10 for every $1 invested, with the caveat that it would also pay your competitor $11, would you actually not accept it?
- Permit 7y agoWouldn't it be rational to wait for my competitor to take you up on that deal? Then I could spend the extra money on research that only benefits myself.
- ryandrake 7y agoApplied across all actors, your strategy results in nobody taking the deal, the worst outcome for everyone but me. It’s such a strange, “everyone loses” attitude, but people are strange. Studies of the Ultimatum Game [1] show that people will actually refuse free money if it meant someone else got more. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoSurely more rational: club together and pay the cost you all pay less, you can repeat and get access to even more opportunities, you can all get the benefits.
- runako 7y agoWithout coming down on either side, the simple answer here is because the funding company would be ahead of competitors. In high-tech markets, pioneers often develop durable leads (Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, etc.). There's a huge business advantage to having the IP + the team that developed that IP in one place. Conversely, handing over IP alone doesn't build a business. For example, Tesla could give away all their private IP for the Model 3 and it would still take a lot of investment for a competitor to arrive at a parity offering (which would be years behind, because Tesla's teams haven't stopped). Because the product is much more than a sum of the basic research.