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If I was a billionaire, that would be a fun thing to do: 1. find 100 highly motivated scientists and engineers 2. pay them each $1m/year 3. put them in a bui

If I was a billionaire, that would be a fun thing to do: 1. find 100 highly motivated scientists and engineers 2. pay them each $1m/year 3. put them in a building 4. see what happens!

Temporary_31337 2y ago
To be fair you only need to pay sustenance or opportunity cost so closer to 100k per person should be fine especially outside of USA
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I figured the $1m would also fund the equipment and supplies they'd need.
  - fuzzfactor 2y ago
    Here's what works for me: 1. Already found X highly motivated scientists and engineers. - in my case people that must like chemicals, electronics, software, stuff like that 2. $1Mil funding x X but it's got to be paid back in 5 years so a viable business model needs to be initiated right away even if the technology is as much as a year out from possible release or commercialization. - each person needs to be worth a million over 5 years, that's hard enough to find, it would be more of a needle in a haystack to find experimentalists where it's good to sink a million per year for a decent length of time, but that can be worked up to. If serious research is involved, stealth must be an option 3. Put them in X number of buildings. - works better than you think, and "nobody's" doing it 4. Some of these are profit centers from day 1, so you could even put franchising on the table ;) - you'd be surprised what people who've already invented a lifetime of stuff could do with the kind of resources that can enable a motivated creator who has yet to make very remarkable progress, so leverage both
    - whywhywhywhy 2y ago
      > but it's got to be paid back in 5 years What happens if they don't though?
      - fuzzfactor 2y ago
        Why, absolute doom, of course :) If you're going to get to 4 easy steps and then outperform Bell Labs, you have to figure that first you need to negotiate a thousand-step process that's completely uncharted so you can come to terms about exactly what that kind of doom consists of in such a worst-case scenario. Without obliterating the slim chances for the kind of major breakthrough where the chances are already elusive under ideal conditions. People aren't accustomed to this. Conceptual advances here seem to always lag technology advances so this is where more massive room for improvement really exists. There will probably always be those who "fail upward" and go forward with undue resources, at the same time as there will be earth-shaking solutions almost within reach that become unsupported prematurely, lost in the weeds with the bulk of truly unfeasibles. Like betting on the wrong horse, you can lose everything :\ Bell labs was really fortunate to have money on every horse in the stable :) For a small number X, odds would be best if every lab was the product of a highly motivated individual's million-dollar ambition, with their only previous obstacle a lack of resources. Not everybody promising is business-like to the same degree, and it can be worth the time for this to develop along with the technology because the idea is for them both to snowball. Most of the time I think there would be fairly early indications in the first few years if things were going to fall badly short of a million-dollar return by a strict deadline on a case-by-case basis. I personally get way more accomplished without a deadline but it takes a lot of effort to get there, I would make sure to never rule it out though. If I was running things I would probably be a lot less strict than most.
ted_dunning 2y ago
The hard part is picking the right people.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  The way to do it is the way top engineers and scientists were recruited for the Manhattan Project. You go around to universities and talk to the professors, who will know who the highly motivated people are.
  - whywhywhywhy 2y ago
    That would have worked back then but post-internet you should be looking for the people who had drive to achieve or build something without the academic structure there to force them to do it. Universities are the place for low agency people in todays world.
- api 2y ago
  What I look for in engineers would be what I’d look for here: “I have no idea how to do that, let me get started.”
- remify 2y ago
  Yeah, there's thousands of university with that kind of people and budget. It's not that fun
xqcgrek2 2y ago
My guess is not much unless you give them a specific problem, and create a hierarchy. Otherwise things will just fragment into cliques and fights, like any university department.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  What would there be to fight over? They each have a $1m budget.
  - Thrymr 2y ago
    Have you ever seen an academic department? Surely the lab scientists and engineers would assert that they need a bigger budget than the mathematicians, and so on.
  - akomtu 2y ago
    In the Manhattan project the scientists were unified by a noble goal. Money don't buy that. Without such a goal, you'll get a hundred scientists each pulling in his own direction in order to get rich.

If I was a billionaire, that would be a fun thing to do: 1. find 100 highly motivated scientists and engineers 2. pay them each $1m/year 3. put them in a building 4. see what happens!

Temporary_31337 2y ago

To be fair you only need to pay sustenance or opportunity cost so closer to 100k per person should be fine especially outside of USA

WalterBright 2y ago
I figured the $1m would also fund the equipment and supplies they'd need.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  Here's what works for me: 1. Already found X highly motivated scientists and engineers. - in my case people that must like chemicals, electronics, software, stuff like that 2. $1Mil funding x X but it's got to be paid back in 5 years so a viable business model needs to be initiated right away even if the technology is as much as a year out from possible release or commercialization. - each person needs to be worth a million over 5 years, that's hard enough to find, it would be more of a needle in a haystack to find experimentalists where it's good to sink a million per year for a decent length of time, but that can be worked up to. If serious research is involved, stealth must be an option 3. Put them in X number of buildings. - works better than you think, and "nobody's" doing it 4. Some of these are profit centers from day 1, so you could even put franchising on the table ;) - you'd be surprised what people who've already invented a lifetime of stuff could do with the kind of resources that can enable a motivated creator who has yet to make very remarkable progress, so leverage both
  - whywhywhywhy 2y ago
    > but it's got to be paid back in 5 years What happens if they don't though?
    - fuzzfactor 2y ago
      Why, absolute doom, of course :) If you're going to get to 4 easy steps and then outperform Bell Labs, you have to figure that first you need to negotiate a thousand-step process that's completely uncharted so you can come to terms about exactly what that kind of doom consists of in such a worst-case scenario. Without obliterating the slim chances for the kind of major breakthrough where the chances are already elusive under ideal conditions. People aren't accustomed to this. Conceptual advances here seem to always lag technology advances so this is where more massive room for improvement really exists. There will probably always be those who "fail upward" and go forward with undue resources, at the same time as there will be earth-shaking solutions almost within reach that become unsupported prematurely, lost in the weeds with the bulk of truly unfeasibles. Like betting on the wrong horse, you can lose everything :\ Bell labs was really fortunate to have money on every horse in the stable :) For a small number X, odds would be best if every lab was the product of a highly motivated individual's million-dollar ambition, with their only previous obstacle a lack of resources. Not everybody promising is business-like to the same degree, and it can be worth the time for this to develop along with the technology because the idea is for them both to snowball. Most of the time I think there would be fairly early indications in the first few years if things were going to fall badly short of a million-dollar return by a strict deadline on a case-by-case basis. I personally get way more accomplished without a deadline but it takes a lot of effort to get there, I would make sure to never rule it out though. If I was running things I would probably be a lot less strict than most.

ted_dunning 2y ago

The hard part is picking the right people.

WalterBright 2y ago
The way to do it is the way top engineers and scientists were recruited for the Manhattan Project. You go around to universities and talk to the professors, who will know who the highly motivated people are.
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  That would have worked back then but post-internet you should be looking for the people who had drive to achieve or build something without the academic structure there to force them to do it. Universities are the place for low agency people in todays world.
api 2y ago
What I look for in engineers would be what I’d look for here: “I have no idea how to do that, let me get started.”
remify 2y ago
Yeah, there's thousands of university with that kind of people and budget. It's not that fun

xqcgrek2 2y ago

My guess is not much unless you give them a specific problem, and create a hierarchy. Otherwise things will just fragment into cliques and fights, like any university department.

WalterBright 2y ago
What would there be to fight over? They each have a $1m budget.
- Thrymr 2y ago
  Have you ever seen an academic department? Surely the lab scientists and engineers would assert that they need a bigger budget than the mathematicians, and so on.
- akomtu 2y ago
  In the Manhattan project the scientists were unified by a noble goal. Money don't buy that. Without such a goal, you'll get a hundred scientists each pulling in his own direction in order to get rich.