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you need a diversity of opinion in order to make meaningful progress and that is more likely to happen when there are different companies

lliamander 7y ago
An under-appreciated point. All heirarchies impose some degree of conformity, whether they are corporate or government. The market is in fact a very non-hierarchical structure, and provides the necessary space for creativity.
topmonk 7y ago
If you are able to recognize that diversity of opinion is desirable, why can't the person in charge recognize this, and create groups that work on different ideas in tandem? Once the ones that are successful bear fruit, those that are working on the failures can be moved over to the successful groups. And instead of the current environment, where there is a lot of wasted effort allowing an inferior product to go all the way to market to languish there, the decision can be made much earlier than that, saving all those wasted resources.
- itronitron 7y ago
  That has worked at companies but it tends to not be a stable state for them long-term. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is the best example I can think of that started off as an innovator and then got re-orged into a walking corpse. I think it is a result of human nature responding to the incentives provided by their company, their education, and culture. Most people, if hired to lead the work on an idea, will become upset or stressed if they learn of another group at the company that is also focused on the same area. Companies can adapt their culture and organizational model to create an ecosystem in which diverse efforts can develop at their natural pace. However if that was easy to do well then there would be no need for companies to hire external design agencies. At the scale of chip manufacturers such as Intel and AMD they probably feel that they are considering many diverse opinions, but each company has its view and once they decide on the path forward they will cut any staff that are not contributing directly to that path (or at least AMD will.)
- lonelappde 7y ago
  The problem is how to adequately choose the person in charge. Adam Smith wrote a book that explains this pretty well. Your idea is appealing in basic theory, for sure, but a few thousand years of experiment and more sophisticated theory of actual human nature disproves it.

lliamander 7y ago

An under-appreciated point. All heirarchies impose some degree of conformity, whether they are corporate or government. The market is in fact a very non-hierarchical structure, and provides the necessary space for creativity.

topmonk 7y ago

If you are able to recognize that diversity of opinion is desirable, why can't the person in charge recognize this, and create groups that work on different ideas in tandem? Once the ones that are successful bear fruit, those that are working on the failures can be moved over to the successful groups. And instead of the current environment, where there is a lot of wasted effort allowing an inferior product to go all the way to market to languish there, the decision can be made much earlier than that, saving all those wasted resources.

itronitron 7y ago
That has worked at companies but it tends to not be a stable state for them long-term. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is the best example I can think of that started off as an innovator and then got re-orged into a walking corpse. I think it is a result of human nature responding to the incentives provided by their company, their education, and culture. Most people, if hired to lead the work on an idea, will become upset or stressed if they learn of another group at the company that is also focused on the same area. Companies can adapt their culture and organizational model to create an ecosystem in which diverse efforts can develop at their natural pace. However if that was easy to do well then there would be no need for companies to hire external design agencies. At the scale of chip manufacturers such as Intel and AMD they probably feel that they are considering many diverse opinions, but each company has its view and once they decide on the path forward they will cut any staff that are not contributing directly to that path (or at least AMD will.)
lonelappde 7y ago
The problem is how to adequately choose the person in charge. Adam Smith wrote a book that explains this pretty well. Your idea is appealing in basic theory, for sure, but a few thousand years of experiment and more sophisticated theory of actual human nature disproves it.