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I disagree. The reason why the most innovation has occurred in this sector is because we're some of the best-funded. Look at the arms industry and you will see

I disagree. The reason why the most innovation has occurred in this sector is because we're some of the best-funded. Look at the arms industry and you will see a similar pace of advancement - mostly due to the bottomless and nigh-unchallengeable defense spending of Uncle Sam. Why this unprecedented level of funding? IMO this really is the heart of Thiel's argument: internet companies are capable of general obscene, absurd, ludicrous profit margins. Think about a company like Facebook - employs a few thousand engineers, but generates revenue and impact far in excess of what you might expect from a crowd of that size. And this is really Thiel's argument, the way I understand it. He's not saying that the iPhone isn't a "technological" breakthrough, but rather it's not a "societal" breakthrough. In the old days, when someone introduces a product, it creates new jobs across the board. When Ford introduced a new car, it didn't just mean jobs for the people in the boardroom and drafting tables. It created jobs in their factories, and indeed tens of thousands of jobs across a wide supply chain necessary to build the product. It created new jobs in dealerships, and auto shops. The job-creation effects of a product were incredibly far-reaching. Now, fast forward to today. What jobs are Facebook creating besides the ones inside their walls? There is no employment ecosystem, no supply chain. And in this way, while Facebook is extracting record revenue from their business, the rest of America is no better off. It used to be that success in capitalism is the tide that floats all boats, but this is increasingly not true, especially in our sector.

ramanujan 15y ago
Look at the arms industry and you will see a similar pace of advancement - mostly due to the bottomless and nigh- unchallengeable defense spending of Uncle Sam. But I don't think you're really disagreeing here. The DoD is a lot less squeamish than civilians about experimental projects that result in death. Leave aside the issue of whether this is good or bad. For them, they are going to be seeing dead bodies as a natural course of doing business, and they want fewer ones, and so they're (much) more willing to pursue riskier projects that may cost lives. Soldiers can be ordered to run into enemy fire, so they can also be ordered to test drive automatic cars (funded by DARPA). Autonomous helicopters that could slice someone in two if the programming goes bad nevertheless get the green light because there are already people being sliced in two, and DoD wants to reduce that number. DoD is really pushing robotics and cybernetics forward in particular because those two result in less dead soldiers and (in the future) soldiers who can function even after losing limbs and eyes[0]. Perhaps the most concrete example of this thesis is what happens when the priorities of DoD and FDA collide. Take a look at the Pathways to Innovation program that FDA just greenlit[1]. On a Tuesday afternoon call with reporters, Shuren said he expects just one or two devices to be approved through the new pathway each year. The first device up for review under the new pathway comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the Department of Defense. The brain-controlled prosthetic is designed to restore near-natural arm, hand, and finger function to patients suffering from spinal cord injury, stroke, or amputation. An implanted microchip on the surface of the brain records neuronal activity, decodes the signals, and activates motor neurons that control the prosthesis. The first chip will be implanted in a patient within six months, Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD, program manager at DARPA, told reporters. There is a very good reason why no private company has yet gotten this kind of fast track, but the DoD has. From FDA's perspective, DoD is a (more powerful) fellow agency which deserves professional courtesy. Moreover, FDA doesn't suspect DoD of just being in this to make money. Thus a dot mil is allowed to play by fundamentally different rules than a dot com. This is my point: when lives are on the line, people will be willing to risk lives to innovate. If not, then not. [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW78wbN-WuU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW78wbN-WuU [1] http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/24762 http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/24...
- onemoreact 15y ago
  It might seem contradictory, but the DoD cares more about it's people than most organisations and at the same time is more than willing to risk lives for progress. Consider the initial proponent / researcher of car seat belts in the US was the Air Force which studied the issue in large part because car crashes where killing more pilots than airplane crashes (at the time). At the same time, they are vary willing to test new airplanes even though test pilots often die. And more than that they where willing to risk a pilot to recreate the conditions of a crash to find out why it happens. If you run the numbers the DoD has directly saved more US lives since WWII in that same time period. Which is not to say it's worth the budget just more useful than you might think.
gradstudent 15y ago
How is the iPhone (and FB and Twitter) not a societal breakthrough? Each has developed entire ecosystems around their respective platforms. Hundreds of companies exist and thrive because of these technologies. Their impact on the global economy, and on job-creation, is much larger than the sum of the engineers within their walls.

ramanujan 15y ago

Look at the arms industry and you will see a similar pace of advancement - mostly due to the bottomless and nigh- unchallengeable defense spending of Uncle Sam. But I don't think you're really disagreeing here. The DoD is a lot less squeamish than civilians about experimental projects that result in death. Leave aside the issue of whether this is good or bad. For them, they are going to be seeing dead bodies as a natural course of doing business, and they want fewer ones, and so they're (much) more willing to pursue riskier projects that may cost lives. Soldiers can be ordered to run into enemy fire, so they can also be ordered to test drive automatic cars (funded by DARPA). Autonomous helicopters that could slice someone in two if the programming goes bad nevertheless get the green light because there are already people being sliced in two, and DoD wants to reduce that number. DoD is really pushing robotics and cybernetics forward in particular because those two result in less dead soldiers and (in the future) soldiers who can function even after losing limbs and eyes[0]. Perhaps the most concrete example of this thesis is what happens when the priorities of DoD and FDA collide. Take a look at the Pathways to Innovation program that FDA just greenlit[1]. On a Tuesday afternoon call with reporters, Shuren said he expects just one or two devices to be approved through the new pathway each year. The first device up for review under the new pathway comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the Department of Defense. The brain-controlled prosthetic is designed to restore near-natural arm, hand, and finger function to patients suffering from spinal cord injury, stroke, or amputation. An implanted microchip on the surface of the brain records neuronal activity, decodes the signals, and activates motor neurons that control the prosthesis. The first chip will be implanted in a patient within six months, Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD, program manager at DARPA, told reporters. There is a very good reason why no private company has yet gotten this kind of fast track, but the DoD has. From FDA's perspective, DoD is a (more powerful) fellow agency which deserves professional courtesy. Moreover, FDA doesn't suspect DoD of just being in this to make money. Thus a dot mil is allowed to play by fundamentally different rules than a dot com. This is my point: when lives are on the line, people will be willing to risk lives to innovate. If not, then not. [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW78wbN-WuU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW78wbN-WuU [1] http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/24762 http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/24...

onemoreact 15y ago
It might seem contradictory, but the DoD cares more about it's people than most organisations and at the same time is more than willing to risk lives for progress. Consider the initial proponent / researcher of car seat belts in the US was the Air Force which studied the issue in large part because car crashes where killing more pilots than airplane crashes (at the time). At the same time, they are vary willing to test new airplanes even though test pilots often die. And more than that they where willing to risk a pilot to recreate the conditions of a crash to find out why it happens. If you run the numbers the DoD has directly saved more US lives since WWII in that same time period. Which is not to say it's worth the budget just more useful than you might think.

gradstudent 15y ago

How is the iPhone (and FB and Twitter) not a societal breakthrough? Each has developed entire ecosystems around their respective platforms. Hundreds of companies exist and thrive because of these technologies. Their impact on the global economy, and on job-creation, is much larger than the sum of the engineers within their walls.