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The Failed Promise of Innovation in the U.S.

10 points by quizbiz 17y ago

quizbiz 17y ago
Read http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/06/insufficient_in.html http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/06/insufficient_in.ht... for more
riffic 17y ago
check out this filmstrip, Brian Dewan on innovation: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96382116 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9638211...
krschultz 17y ago
We've past all the long hanging fruit. Everything from here on forward is going to take more time, money, and people than. 100-200 years ago there were thousands of people at best with the education to push things forward. Often they were experts in several fields. Today we have hundreds of thousands of people pushing on these fields (of which people are only an expert in one or two things). All of the easy answers are gone. This is compounded by the bar being really high and the regulation really thick. What counts as a great innovation in alternate energy today requires at least being competitive with existing technology, which has almost one hundred years of development by tens of thousands of engineers at thousands of companies. It is no wonder it takes longer. And you have to worry (rightly so) the environmental and safety aspects of things that wouldn't have mattered 150 years ago. All of these things slow down progress and make it more expensive. One of the reason progress was cheap in computer science was because the field was young, but as it matures we will see a slow down in innovation. Only fools will continue to believe Moore's "law" has any truth looking 20 years into the future.
- netsp 17y ago
  Careful. What counts as a great innovation in alternate energy today requires at least being competitive with existing technology, which has almost one hundred years of development by tens of thousands of engineers at thousands of companies. That also applies to coal vs charcoal.
- rml 17y ago
  Beyond initial capital investment, regulation, and entrenched competitors, there is the "long tail" of production: namely, that most engineered products are built from parts sourced from many different vendors, sometimes thousands of miles apart. Add in fluctuating energy prices (read: shipping costs), medical insurance premiums that rise year on year, and it's difficult to see what your costs will look like in five years. In short, I agree: it looks expensive out there.
akkartik 17y ago
counterpoint: http://fredwilson.vc/post/117874217/when-we-talk-about-innovation-and-global http://fredwilson.vc/post/117874217/when-we-talk-about-innov...
ori_b 17y ago
It seems to me that the problem isn't the lack of innovation. It isn't the lack of ideas. It seems to be that investors want instant gratification and rapid commercialise. However, several of the largest fundamental advances in technology came out of pure research, curiosity without the attempt to commercialise. For example, when the laser was first created, the researchers saw no commercial applications for it. Now, lasers are a key component of our fiber-optic communication backbones. What's needed isn't more innovation; Instead, more patience is needed. More exploration out of curiosity. More investment in pure knowledge. More research. The fruits of commercial applications will grow off the tree of knowledge only if the tree of knowledge is well nourished.

10 points by quizbiz 17y ago

Read http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/06/insufficient_in.html http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/06/insufficient_in.ht... for more

riffic 17y ago

check out this filmstrip, Brian Dewan on innovation: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96382116 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9638211...

krschultz 17y ago

We've past all the long hanging fruit. Everything from here on forward is going to take more time, money, and people than. 100-200 years ago there were thousands of people at best with the education to push things forward. Often they were experts in several fields. Today we have hundreds of thousands of people pushing on these fields (of which people are only an expert in one or two things). All of the easy answers are gone. This is compounded by the bar being really high and the regulation really thick. What counts as a great innovation in alternate energy today requires at least being competitive with existing technology, which has almost one hundred years of development by tens of thousands of engineers at thousands of companies. It is no wonder it takes longer. And you have to worry (rightly so) the environmental and safety aspects of things that wouldn't have mattered 150 years ago. All of these things slow down progress and make it more expensive. One of the reason progress was cheap in computer science was because the field was young, but as it matures we will see a slow down in innovation. Only fools will continue to believe Moore's "law" has any truth looking 20 years into the future.

netsp 17y ago
Careful. What counts as a great innovation in alternate energy today requires at least being competitive with existing technology, which has almost one hundred years of development by tens of thousands of engineers at thousands of companies. That also applies to coal vs charcoal.
rml 17y ago
Beyond initial capital investment, regulation, and entrenched competitors, there is the "long tail" of production: namely, that most engineered products are built from parts sourced from many different vendors, sometimes thousands of miles apart. Add in fluctuating energy prices (read: shipping costs), medical insurance premiums that rise year on year, and it's difficult to see what your costs will look like in five years. In short, I agree: it looks expensive out there.

akkartik 17y ago

counterpoint: http://fredwilson.vc/post/117874217/when-we-talk-about-innovation-and-global http://fredwilson.vc/post/117874217/when-we-talk-about-innov...

ori_b 17y ago

It seems to me that the problem isn't the lack of innovation. It isn't the lack of ideas. It seems to be that investors want instant gratification and rapid commercialise. However, several of the largest fundamental advances in technology came out of pure research, curiosity without the attempt to commercialise. For example, when the laser was first created, the researchers saw no commercial applications for it. Now, lasers are a key component of our fiber-optic communication backbones. What's needed isn't more innovation; Instead, more patience is needed. More exploration out of curiosity. More investment in pure knowledge. More research. The fruits of commercial applications will grow off the tree of knowledge only if the tree of knowledge is well nourished.