4 ms·

I know DARPA has done some good work in the past - they are still mostly famous for their involvement in the early development of the internet in the late 1960

by spikels 14y ago

I know DARPA has done some good work in the past - they are still mostly famous for their involvement in the early development of the internet in the late 1960 and early 1970s. But does anyone have hard facts of how effective they are at applied problem solving? Or do they just get lucky every once in a while and have good PR? In particular have they developed some better way to run R&D programs? I don't know but my limited interaction with their program managers did not impress me but this is purely anecdotal.

rayiner 14y ago
They also bankrolled much of the AI research during that period, which is still paying dividends today (because the state of the art hasn't advanced much in that field since DARPA pulled out). Also, tremendous improvements in robotics via funding UAV projects, etc. What DARPA has is a lot of money without a lot of oversight. Don't underestimate the power of that model. If you look at the organizations that have been extremely effective at innovation, it's organizations where research isn't subject to market pressures. Bell Labs was bankrolled by AT&T's telephone monopoly. Xerox PARC was bankrolled by Xerox's extremely lucrative copier business. Intel, IBM, Google, etc. Innovation is associated with companies that have such tremendous market power that they can be benevolently forward-looking, instead of having to pinch every penny to survive in the dog fight that is a competitive market place. Tim Wu's book "The Master Switch" gives great insight into this aspect of the AT&T monopoly.
- spikels 14y ago
  Both the required resources and lots of freedom does seem like a good recipe for innovation. Your historical examples make sense and I can think of many more. However when it comes to government sponsored research I need a little more convincing. Certainly there are good anecdotes and at $3B a year DARPA way be great relative value compared to DOE or NIH. Thanks for pointing me to Tim Wu - very interesting analysis.

by spikels 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago

They also bankrolled much of the AI research during that period, which is still paying dividends today (because the state of the art hasn't advanced much in that field since DARPA pulled out). Also, tremendous improvements in robotics via funding UAV projects, etc. What DARPA has is a lot of money without a lot of oversight. Don't underestimate the power of that model. If you look at the organizations that have been extremely effective at innovation, it's organizations where research isn't subject to market pressures. Bell Labs was bankrolled by AT&T's telephone monopoly. Xerox PARC was bankrolled by Xerox's extremely lucrative copier business. Intel, IBM, Google, etc. Innovation is associated with companies that have such tremendous market power that they can be benevolently forward-looking, instead of having to pinch every penny to survive in the dog fight that is a competitive market place. Tim Wu's book "The Master Switch" gives great insight into this aspect of the AT&T monopoly.

spikels 14y ago
Both the required resources and lots of freedom does seem like a good recipe for innovation. Your historical examples make sense and I can think of many more. However when it comes to government sponsored research I need a little more convincing. Certainly there are good anecdotes and at $3B a year DARPA way be great relative value compared to DOE or NIH. Thanks for pointing me to Tim Wu - very interesting analysis.