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““There is not a single key technology behind the iPhone that has not been state funded,” says economist Mazzucato. This includes the wireless networks, “the In

““There is not a single key technology behind the iPhone that has not been state funded,” says economist Mazzucato. This includes the wireless networks, “the Internet, GPS, a touch-screen display, and … the voice-activated personal assistant Siri.” Apple has recombined these technologies impressively. But its achievements rest on many years of public-sector investment. To put it another way, do we really think that if Jobs and Musk had never come along, there would have been no smartphone revolution, no surge of interest in electric vehicles?“ Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/539861/techs-enduring-great-man-myth/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/539861/techs-enduring-gre...

janhenr 7y ago
The question if somebody else would have made the smartphone is besides the point. Apple made the iPhone under the leadership of Steve Jobs, meaning the company profits enormously and thus the company can reward Steve Jobs enormously.
- FabHK 7y ago
  The question wasn't whether the company can afford to reward him enormously, though, but whether it should reward him enormously.
dannyw 7y ago
I’ll believe it when the government makes the next iPhone, or the next electric vehicle. In my view, there is tremendous value in taking something existing and productionizing it so the whole world can get value from it. It’s value add.
- ardy42 7y ago
  >> ““There is not a single key technology behind the iPhone that has not been state funded,” says economist Mazzucato. This includes the wireless networks, “the Internet, GPS, a touch-screen display, and … the voice-activated personal assistant Siri.” > I’ll believe it when the government makes the next iPhone, or the next electric vehicle. > In my view, there is tremendous value in taking something existing and productionizing it so the whole world can get value from it. The point is you can't productionize something that doesn't exist. Without the foundation of government-funded basic research and technology development, the iPhone would have been nothing. No one's saying there's no value in product development, just that it's an error to mistake that value for all the value. For the most part, businesses don't do much if any basic research because there's no clear path to a payoff. It's simply a bad business decision. They do the last step (product development) because it's the least risky and most profitable. The exceptions are few monopolies, and they probably wouldn't have bothered without the piles of excess money and the antitrust axe hanging over their head.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > For the most part, businesses don't do much if any basic research because there's no clear path to a payoff. Businesses (and individuals) often contribute to universities monies which are used for basic research. It becomes the university's endowment. A great deal of basic research is funded this way. Often in return the university will name the building after the donor. The government didn't do much of anything in basic research before WW2, it was privately funded. http://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/funding-for-scientific-research/ http://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/funding-for-scientific-resea...
    - ardy42 7y ago
      >> For the most part, businesses don't do much if any basic research because there's no clear path to a payoff. > Businesses (and individuals) often contribute to universities monies which are used for basic research. It becomes the university's endowment. A great deal of basic research is funded this way. Often in return the university will name the building after the donor. Your link doesn't seem to support your conclusion very well, but rather echoes my points: > ...She points out that the other likely [non-government] source of research funding—industry—prefers to direct its money to projects that affect the bottom line. “Industry is focused on applied research that will result in the development of products with immediate commercial application,” she says. “But fundamental or basic research is needed in order to create the knowledge base that leads to more applied research. > ... > The AAAS has the data to support Waters’ concern about corporate research: 80 cents of every dollar that industry spends on R&D goes to development, and only 20 cents goes to basic and applied research, a ratio that is the polar opposite of that found in civilian science agencies. > At BU, whose researchers study an enormous range of subjects, from the birth of frogs to the birth of planets, about 80 percent of the roughly $350 million for sponsored research received in FY 2014 (down from a 2010 peak of $407 million) came directly from the federal government, and another 10 percent originated in government grants and came to BU through other institutions, such as Harvard or MIT. That's 90% federal funding. Why do you make such a big deal out of the remaining 10%? > Matt Hourihan, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program, says the notion that corporate and foundation sponsors are waiting in the wings is a comforting one, but his association’s research has found no evidence that it’s true. So far, says Hourihan, the biggest increases have come from university coffers. “Industry contributions haven’t increased appreciably, and I’m not sure we have a clear enough picture on the philanthropic front yet.” So the government funds the bulk of basic research. The funding is declining for political reasons, but there's no evidence that private groups are picking up the slack. > The government didn't do much of anything in basic research before WW2, it was privately funded. And afterwards (as described in your link), the story drastically changed. Which was when much of the relevant research and technology development related to the iPhone was done. However, in the last 10-15 years, it seems like starve-the-state politicians may be starting to change that successful formula: > One Washington insider, an expert on US research funding ... says that “research and development funding generally does pretty well in the government’s budget process,” because the government branches agree it’s important to stay competitive in science and technology. But looming over every budget decision, this expert says, is a broader debate about what the size of the government should be and how the government should spend its limited research budget.
- CaptainZapp 7y ago
  It would be nice, though, if those companies, which profit by the billions and billions from historical government investments would not employ all kinds of accounting shenanigans in order to minimize their taxes, or not paying any taxes at all. It would also be nice if they wouldn't be so hell bent in abusing the patent system or - standards in oder to ringfence their privilege and make sure that nobody can build useful products on foundations essentially paid for by the tax payer.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Tax code is a failure of government. There's no "moral" tax rate that companies should pay and they'll always seek to pay the least.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      There's no moral anything for companies, they are inherently by code immoral. (Fiduciary duty is the opposite of morality.) This means they should still pay taxes as necessary.
      - manigandham 7y ago
        The law determines what's necessary, and as long as they follow the law then they're paying as necessary.
    - thulecitizen 7y ago
      > Tax code is a failure of government. Is tax avoidance a failure of business then? What about the billion dollar lobbying inudstry? “[Rentier capitalists] assert a belief in ‘free markets’ and want us to believe that economic policies are extending them. That is untrue. Today we have the most unfree market system ever created…. How can politicians look into TV cameras and say we have a free market system when patents guarantee monopoly incomes for twenty years, preventing anyone from competing? How can they claim there are free markets when copyright rules give a guaranteed income for seventy years after a person’s death? How can they claim free markets exist when one person or company is given a subsidy and not others, or when they sell off the commons that belong to all of us, at a discount, to a favoured individual or company, or when Uber, TaskRabbit and their ilk act as unregulated labour brokers, profiting from the labour of others?" "…today, a tiny minority of people and corporate interests across the world are accumulating vast wealth and power from rental income, not only from housing and land but from a range of other assets, natural and created. ‘Rentiers’ of all kinds are in unparalleled ascendancy and the neo-liberal state is only too keen to oblige their greed. Rentiers derive income from ownership, possession or control of assets that are scarce or artificially made scarce. Most familiar is rental income from land, property, mineral exploitation or financial investments, but other sources have grown too. They include the income lenders gain from debt interest; income from ownership of ‘intellectual property’ (such as patents, copyright, brands and trademarks); capital gains on investments; ‘above normal’ company profits (when a firm has a dominant market position that allows it to charge high prices or dictate terms); income from government subsidies; and income of financial and other intermediaries derived from third-party transactions." Source: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corruption-capitalism-guy-standing https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...
WalterBright 7y ago
Jobs turned Apple around long before the iphone. He did it by reorganizing the company and redirecting its efforts, something a string of previous Apple CEOs failed at. > do we really think that if Jobs and Musk had never come along Do you really think that without the internet, nobody would have invented a network? And they did - Compuserve, Timenet, MCIMail, BIX, Prodigy, FidoNet, Gopher, etc. Heck, anyone with two or more computers would hook them together. I even wrote code to connect my own computers together over a serial line. The internet was also based on previous technology - the telegraphy network.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
manigandham 7y ago
So the names would be different, but the rewards would be the same. What is the point of the question?
- thulecitizen 7y ago
  From the same article: "The idea of “great men” as engines of change grew popular in the 19th century. In 1840, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote that “the history of what man has accomplished in this world is at bottom the history of the Great Men who have worked here.” It wasn’t long, however, before critics questioned this one–dimensional view, arguing that historical change is driven by a complex mix of trends and not by any one person’s achievements. “" and: "Hero myths like the ones surrounding Musk and Jobs are damaging in other ways, too. If tech leaders are seen primarily as singular, lone achievers, it is easier for them to extract disproportionate wealth. It is also harder to get their companies to accept that they should return some of their profits to agencies like NASA and the National Science Foundation through higher taxes or simply less tax dodging." For me the point is that innovators stand on the shoulders of giants (all the advancements made up until this point). Another source talking about the same author (Mariana Mazzucato) and using her arguments (from her book: the Entrepreneurial State): “Lone genius: "An individual at the head of a private enterprise who has achieved fame through effective PR designed to create an arbitrary association of that person with successful commercial innovation, instilling in the public’s mind the absurd belief that the insight behind the innovation emerged from a social, economic and intellectual vacuum” Source: https://qrius.com/the-myth-of-innovation-and-the-lone-genius https://qrius.com/the-myth-of-innovation-and-the-lone-genius
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Successful entrepreneurs do not "extract" wealth, nor is it given to them as some sort of reward for being great. They create the wealth. The compensation they receive is not given out of gratitude, it is agreed upon in advance if they succeed. I and the D team makes and gives away D for free. Many individuals and companies have made a great deal of money from using D. They do not retroactively owe me money. I'm not upset that they made money off of D - I'm glad they did! Of course it is nice when they decide to give back to the D community - I appreciate that. But nobody owes us anything for D.
ryacko 7y ago
DARPA's budget is three billion dollars. Intel's net income is twenty-one billion dollars. The need for public-sector investment has ended.
takinola 7y ago
To paraphrase (fictional) Mark Zuckerburg - "If you had invented the iPhone, you would have invented the iPhone" Every human that has ever lived has lived on the same Earth. We have all had access to the same resources. However, some people did different things with the resources available to them. Stating that the basis of these achievements require the work of others is true but besides the point. Someone somewhere, with access to the exact same things you and I have access to, is inventing something that neither of us will. Should that person not get the reward for their skill and work?

janhenr 7y ago

The question if somebody else would have made the smartphone is besides the point. Apple made the iPhone under the leadership of Steve Jobs, meaning the company profits enormously and thus the company can reward Steve Jobs enormously.

FabHK 7y ago
The question wasn't whether the company can afford to reward him enormously, though, but whether it should reward him enormously.

dannyw 7y ago

I’ll believe it when the government makes the next iPhone, or the next electric vehicle. In my view, there is tremendous value in taking something existing and productionizing it so the whole world can get value from it. It’s value add.

ardy42 7y ago
>> ““There is not a single key technology behind the iPhone that has not been state funded,” says economist Mazzucato. This includes the wireless networks, “the Internet, GPS, a touch-screen display, and … the voice-activated personal assistant Siri.” > I’ll believe it when the government makes the next iPhone, or the next electric vehicle. > In my view, there is tremendous value in taking something existing and productionizing it so the whole world can get value from it. The point is you can't productionize something that doesn't exist. Without the foundation of government-funded basic research and technology development, the iPhone would have been nothing. No one's saying there's no value in product development, just that it's an error to mistake that value for all the value. For the most part, businesses don't do much if any basic research because there's no clear path to a payoff. It's simply a bad business decision. They do the last step (product development) because it's the least risky and most profitable. The exceptions are few monopolies, and they probably wouldn't have bothered without the piles of excess money and the antitrust axe hanging over their head.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > For the most part, businesses don't do much if any basic research because there's no clear path to a payoff. Businesses (and individuals) often contribute to universities monies which are used for basic research. It becomes the university's endowment. A great deal of basic research is funded this way. Often in return the university will name the building after the donor. The government didn't do much of anything in basic research before WW2, it was privately funded. http://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/funding-for-scientific-research/ http://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/funding-for-scientific-resea...
  - ardy42 7y ago
    >> For the most part, businesses don't do much if any basic research because there's no clear path to a payoff. > Businesses (and individuals) often contribute to universities monies which are used for basic research. It becomes the university's endowment. A great deal of basic research is funded this way. Often in return the university will name the building after the donor. Your link doesn't seem to support your conclusion very well, but rather echoes my points: > ...She points out that the other likely [non-government] source of research funding—industry—prefers to direct its money to projects that affect the bottom line. “Industry is focused on applied research that will result in the development of products with immediate commercial application,” she says. “But fundamental or basic research is needed in order to create the knowledge base that leads to more applied research. > ... > The AAAS has the data to support Waters’ concern about corporate research: 80 cents of every dollar that industry spends on R&D goes to development, and only 20 cents goes to basic and applied research, a ratio that is the polar opposite of that found in civilian science agencies. > At BU, whose researchers study an enormous range of subjects, from the birth of frogs to the birth of planets, about 80 percent of the roughly $350 million for sponsored research received in FY 2014 (down from a 2010 peak of $407 million) came directly from the federal government, and another 10 percent originated in government grants and came to BU through other institutions, such as Harvard or MIT. That's 90% federal funding. Why do you make such a big deal out of the remaining 10%? > Matt Hourihan, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program, says the notion that corporate and foundation sponsors are waiting in the wings is a comforting one, but his association’s research has found no evidence that it’s true. So far, says Hourihan, the biggest increases have come from university coffers. “Industry contributions haven’t increased appreciably, and I’m not sure we have a clear enough picture on the philanthropic front yet.” So the government funds the bulk of basic research. The funding is declining for political reasons, but there's no evidence that private groups are picking up the slack. > The government didn't do much of anything in basic research before WW2, it was privately funded. And afterwards (as described in your link), the story drastically changed. Which was when much of the relevant research and technology development related to the iPhone was done. However, in the last 10-15 years, it seems like starve-the-state politicians may be starting to change that successful formula: > One Washington insider, an expert on US research funding ... says that “research and development funding generally does pretty well in the government’s budget process,” because the government branches agree it’s important to stay competitive in science and technology. But looming over every budget decision, this expert says, is a broader debate about what the size of the government should be and how the government should spend its limited research budget.
CaptainZapp 7y ago
It would be nice, though, if those companies, which profit by the billions and billions from historical government investments would not employ all kinds of accounting shenanigans in order to minimize their taxes, or not paying any taxes at all. It would also be nice if they wouldn't be so hell bent in abusing the patent system or - standards in oder to ringfence their privilege and make sure that nobody can build useful products on foundations essentially paid for by the tax payer.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Tax code is a failure of government. There's no "moral" tax rate that companies should pay and they'll always seek to pay the least.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    There's no moral anything for companies, they are inherently by code immoral. (Fiduciary duty is the opposite of morality.) This means they should still pay taxes as necessary.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      The law determines what's necessary, and as long as they follow the law then they're paying as necessary.
  - thulecitizen 7y ago
    > Tax code is a failure of government. Is tax avoidance a failure of business then? What about the billion dollar lobbying inudstry? “[Rentier capitalists] assert a belief in ‘free markets’ and want us to believe that economic policies are extending them. That is untrue. Today we have the most unfree market system ever created…. How can politicians look into TV cameras and say we have a free market system when patents guarantee monopoly incomes for twenty years, preventing anyone from competing? How can they claim there are free markets when copyright rules give a guaranteed income for seventy years after a person’s death? How can they claim free markets exist when one person or company is given a subsidy and not others, or when they sell off the commons that belong to all of us, at a discount, to a favoured individual or company, or when Uber, TaskRabbit and their ilk act as unregulated labour brokers, profiting from the labour of others?" "…today, a tiny minority of people and corporate interests across the world are accumulating vast wealth and power from rental income, not only from housing and land but from a range of other assets, natural and created. ‘Rentiers’ of all kinds are in unparalleled ascendancy and the neo-liberal state is only too keen to oblige their greed. Rentiers derive income from ownership, possession or control of assets that are scarce or artificially made scarce. Most familiar is rental income from land, property, mineral exploitation or financial investments, but other sources have grown too. They include the income lenders gain from debt interest; income from ownership of ‘intellectual property’ (such as patents, copyright, brands and trademarks); capital gains on investments; ‘above normal’ company profits (when a firm has a dominant market position that allows it to charge high prices or dictate terms); income from government subsidies; and income of financial and other intermediaries derived from third-party transactions." Source: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corruption-capitalism-guy-standing https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...

WalterBright 7y ago

Jobs turned Apple around long before the iphone. He did it by reorganizing the company and redirecting its efforts, something a string of previous Apple CEOs failed at. > do we really think that if Jobs and Musk had never come along Do you really think that without the internet, nobody would have invented a network? And they did - Compuserve, Timenet, MCIMail, BIX, Prodigy, FidoNet, Gopher, etc. Heck, anyone with two or more computers would hook them together. I even wrote code to connect my own computers together over a serial line. The internet was also based on previous technology - the telegraphy network.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

manigandham 7y ago

So the names would be different, but the rewards would be the same. What is the point of the question?

thulecitizen 7y ago
From the same article: "The idea of “great men” as engines of change grew popular in the 19th century. In 1840, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote that “the history of what man has accomplished in this world is at bottom the history of the Great Men who have worked here.” It wasn’t long, however, before critics questioned this one–dimensional view, arguing that historical change is driven by a complex mix of trends and not by any one person’s achievements. “" and: "Hero myths like the ones surrounding Musk and Jobs are damaging in other ways, too. If tech leaders are seen primarily as singular, lone achievers, it is easier for them to extract disproportionate wealth. It is also harder to get their companies to accept that they should return some of their profits to agencies like NASA and the National Science Foundation through higher taxes or simply less tax dodging." For me the point is that innovators stand on the shoulders of giants (all the advancements made up until this point). Another source talking about the same author (Mariana Mazzucato) and using her arguments (from her book: the Entrepreneurial State): “Lone genius: "An individual at the head of a private enterprise who has achieved fame through effective PR designed to create an arbitrary association of that person with successful commercial innovation, instilling in the public’s mind the absurd belief that the insight behind the innovation emerged from a social, economic and intellectual vacuum” Source: https://qrius.com/the-myth-of-innovation-and-the-lone-genius https://qrius.com/the-myth-of-innovation-and-the-lone-genius
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Successful entrepreneurs do not "extract" wealth, nor is it given to them as some sort of reward for being great. They create the wealth. The compensation they receive is not given out of gratitude, it is agreed upon in advance if they succeed. I and the D team makes and gives away D for free. Many individuals and companies have made a great deal of money from using D. They do not retroactively owe me money. I'm not upset that they made money off of D - I'm glad they did! Of course it is nice when they decide to give back to the D community - I appreciate that. But nobody owes us anything for D.

ryacko 7y ago

DARPA's budget is three billion dollars. Intel's net income is twenty-one billion dollars. The need for public-sector investment has ended.

takinola 7y ago

To paraphrase (fictional) Mark Zuckerburg - "If you had invented the iPhone, you would have invented the iPhone" Every human that has ever lived has lived on the same Earth. We have all had access to the same resources. However, some people did different things with the resources available to them. Stating that the basis of these achievements require the work of others is true but besides the point. Someone somewhere, with access to the exact same things you and I have access to, is inventing something that neither of us will. Should that person not get the reward for their skill and work?