5 ms·

Just start with a big BIG pile of cash and work back from there. https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/budget https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/budget

chc4 5y ago
3.5 billion for every DARPA project is a hilariously low number. DARPA projects are famous for having low budgets, completing under budget, and completing under time. It has an extremely worthwhile return on investment.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  I'd be keen to see a source on this if you have one.
- Donald 5y ago
  No US government research project aims to be under budget. Money is viewed as a finite expiring resource and there's every incentive to avoid your contractors from returning ceiling to the government. I would not consider DARPA work to be low budget. DARPA programs are very typically in the $50 million range and program resources are split up between multiple performers. Sometimes larger program bets are made, especially in hot areas of research or programs where there are large integration costs.
  - rmah 5y ago
    A $50mil budget for a applied research project seems pretty low to me, especially when split up between multiple orgs.
goodcjw2 5y ago
$3~4B is indeed quite big budget. However, it's dwarfed by big tech's R&D budget. FB alone spends $20B+ each year. I guess one key difference is that unlike FB, DARPA money doesn't need to be confined to make quick and visible returns, thus they can focus on more long term problems. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/research-development-expenses https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/resear...
- rektide 5y ago
  The Dream Machine: J. C. R. Licklider & The Revolution that Made Computing Personal, by Michael Waldrop[1], is one of the books out there that touches upon the early days of ARPA, what happened, and how computing & networking was jump started under by a far-seeing thrown-into-position bureaucrat who both dreamed big personally but more so, stood back & gave multiple far seeing groups of techies free reign to bring their dreams to life. A lot of other books I've read also speak similar stories, and I tend to believe them. It's a near & dear book to me (although due for a re-read at this point), & I think many others. A history of many of the ideas circulating, and how many overlapped & reinforced on the way to building what ended up being the internet. There's more internet-centric accounts like Where Wizards Stay Up Late or Dealers of Lightning, but Dream Machines remains the favorite of many[2]. I just cant emphasize enough how much benefit I think there is to government granting good hard working big idea people, with not a lot of oversight or expectations. The counter though, is that these were relatively small organizations, all in all, and the goal is not to create jobs for life (as I feel like most other research institutions tend to do) but to fund projects, ideas, for a duration, and then move on, re-allocate funds. [1] https://www.wired.com/2001/10/the-dream-machine-j-c-r-licklider-and-the-revolution-that-made-computing-personal-by-m-mitchell-waldrop/ https://www.wired.com/2001/10/the-dream-machine-j-c-r-lickli... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14119220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14119220
- Esras 5y ago
  The kind of R&D that DARPA is doing and the kind of R&D that Facebook is reporting in their yearly report are very, _very_ different numbers. Every single tech company reports ongoing development work as "R&D," whereas much of the work that DARPA or other national labs do is exploratory and towards a lot of different projects. For instance, at every company I've worked at, all of the infrastructure is under the R&D budget.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I'm gonna guess: tax evasion. Like in the last two years, quite a lot of software developers in Poland suddenly started doing "R&D", because performing the necessary rituals to convince the tax man that your CRUD app is "research" let you drop your tax rate to 5%.
mattkrause 5y ago
In a ha-ha-only-serious way, I think this is a big part of the answer. DARPA is the only US funder that’s willing to pay for experienced staff. If your proposal needs a half-dozen seasoned scientists or engineers, they’ll pay for it. In contrast, the NIH and NSF are very trainee-focused: a typical project consists of one professor loosely overseeing 1-3 “trainees”. We obviously need future scientists, but this model has a ton of drawbacks in terms of speed, quality, and even the nature of the project (which needs to let three people be somewhat-separately “evaluated”). It has also no room in it for any ICs more than four or five years post-PhD, which is bonkers given what the same organizations just paid to train them!
xallarap 5y ago
Start with an ibm 7090 and pong. Hurry.

chc4 5y ago

3.5 billion for every DARPA project is a hilariously low number. DARPA projects are famous for having low budgets, completing under budget, and completing under time. It has an extremely worthwhile return on investment.

pedalpete 5y ago
I'd be keen to see a source on this if you have one.
Donald 5y ago
No US government research project aims to be under budget. Money is viewed as a finite expiring resource and there's every incentive to avoid your contractors from returning ceiling to the government. I would not consider DARPA work to be low budget. DARPA programs are very typically in the $50 million range and program resources are split up between multiple performers. Sometimes larger program bets are made, especially in hot areas of research or programs where there are large integration costs.
- rmah 5y ago
  A $50mil budget for a applied research project seems pretty low to me, especially when split up between multiple orgs.

goodcjw2 5y ago

$3~4B is indeed quite big budget. However, it's dwarfed by big tech's R&D budget. FB alone spends $20B+ each year. I guess one key difference is that unlike FB, DARPA money doesn't need to be confined to make quick and visible returns, thus they can focus on more long term problems. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/research-development-expenses https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/resear...

rektide 5y ago
The Dream Machine: J. C. R. Licklider & The Revolution that Made Computing Personal, by Michael Waldrop[1], is one of the books out there that touches upon the early days of ARPA, what happened, and how computing & networking was jump started under by a far-seeing thrown-into-position bureaucrat who both dreamed big personally but more so, stood back & gave multiple far seeing groups of techies free reign to bring their dreams to life. A lot of other books I've read also speak similar stories, and I tend to believe them. It's a near & dear book to me (although due for a re-read at this point), & I think many others. A history of many of the ideas circulating, and how many overlapped & reinforced on the way to building what ended up being the internet. There's more internet-centric accounts like Where Wizards Stay Up Late or Dealers of Lightning, but Dream Machines remains the favorite of many[2]. I just cant emphasize enough how much benefit I think there is to government granting good hard working big idea people, with not a lot of oversight or expectations. The counter though, is that these were relatively small organizations, all in all, and the goal is not to create jobs for life (as I feel like most other research institutions tend to do) but to fund projects, ideas, for a duration, and then move on, re-allocate funds. [1] https://www.wired.com/2001/10/the-dream-machine-j-c-r-licklider-and-the-revolution-that-made-computing-personal-by-m-mitchell-waldrop/ https://www.wired.com/2001/10/the-dream-machine-j-c-r-lickli... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14119220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14119220
Esras 5y ago
The kind of R&D that DARPA is doing and the kind of R&D that Facebook is reporting in their yearly report are very, _very_ different numbers. Every single tech company reports ongoing development work as "R&D," whereas much of the work that DARPA or other national labs do is exploratory and towards a lot of different projects. For instance, at every company I've worked at, all of the infrastructure is under the R&D budget.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  I'm gonna guess: tax evasion. Like in the last two years, quite a lot of software developers in Poland suddenly started doing "R&D", because performing the necessary rituals to convince the tax man that your CRUD app is "research" let you drop your tax rate to 5%.

mattkrause 5y ago

In a ha-ha-only-serious way, I think this is a big part of the answer. DARPA is the only US funder that’s willing to pay for experienced staff. If your proposal needs a half-dozen seasoned scientists or engineers, they’ll pay for it. In contrast, the NIH and NSF are very trainee-focused: a typical project consists of one professor loosely overseeing 1-3 “trainees”. We obviously need future scientists, but this model has a ton of drawbacks in terms of speed, quality, and even the nature of the project (which needs to let three people be somewhat-separately “evaluated”). It has also no room in it for any ICs more than four or five years post-PhD, which is bonkers given what the same organizations just paid to train them!

xallarap 5y ago

Start with an ibm 7090 and pong. Hurry.