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Because usually what the companies are willing to pay is much too low for the actual effort involved.

by TwoBit 12y ago

Tycho 12y ago
That would explain a lack of participation, but this seems more like a lack of offers. It doesn't cost the company anything to put up a reward.
- mentat 12y ago
  It would cost them the legal due diligence and setup which could be significant for complicated requests and/or large companies.
kretor 12y ago
In the future, other companies/orgs may add to one company's prize pot therefore make it a sufficient offer. Often times, people try to win the prize, knowing they'll on average make a loss, but doing it out of fun. See e.g. Google Lunar X Prize.
lifeformed 12y ago
But the cool thing is that the companies will attract all the non-standard R&D people: smart kids, people in between jobs, university students, etc. Smart people with extra time on their hands, who would love for a tangible challenge to work on with real deadlines. But of course, it's also not really reasonable to devote so much time to something that they aren't guaranteed to win. Maybe there could be something in between? You show the company an early prototype or some sort of promising direction, and then they pay you a stipend to continue working on it. The prize money is then distributed among the most promising results, instead of just one.
PeterisP 12y ago
The same companies that treat 100m-1b sized acquisitions as a cheap alternative to R&D? They are showing in practice that they are willing to pay huge amounts of money for "outsourced" R&D; sure, a prototype stage is worth less than an implmenetd product, but $1m or more seems to be a reasonable and affordable ballpark for such offers from the "buyer" perspective. The remaining question is if ~$1m is an appropriate amount for the inventor, given the effort required - but that seems very subjective and depends on each individual inventor and their location; in many countries you could fund a whole research laboratory of a good university for $1m.

Because usually what the companies are willing to pay is much too low for the actual effort involved.

by TwoBit 12y ago

Because usually what the companies are willing to pay is much too low for the actual effort involved.

Tycho 12y ago

That would explain a lack of participation, but this seems more like a lack of offers. It doesn't cost the company anything to put up a reward.

mentat 12y ago
It would cost them the legal due diligence and setup which could be significant for complicated requests and/or large companies.

kretor 12y ago

In the future, other companies/orgs may add to one company's prize pot therefore make it a sufficient offer. Often times, people try to win the prize, knowing they'll on average make a loss, but doing it out of fun. See e.g. Google Lunar X Prize.

lifeformed 12y ago

But the cool thing is that the companies will attract all the non-standard R&D people: smart kids, people in between jobs, university students, etc. Smart people with extra time on their hands, who would love for a tangible challenge to work on with real deadlines. But of course, it's also not really reasonable to devote so much time to something that they aren't guaranteed to win. Maybe there could be something in between? You show the company an early prototype or some sort of promising direction, and then they pay you a stipend to continue working on it. The prize money is then distributed among the most promising results, instead of just one.

PeterisP 12y ago

The same companies that treat 100m-1b sized acquisitions as a cheap alternative to R&D? They are showing in practice that they are willing to pay huge amounts of money for "outsourced" R&D; sure, a prototype stage is worth less than an implmenetd product, but $1m or more seems to be a reasonable and affordable ballpark for such offers from the "buyer" perspective. The remaining question is if ~$1m is an appropriate amount for the inventor, given the effort required - but that seems very subjective and depends on each individual inventor and their location; in many countries you could fund a whole research laboratory of a good university for $1m.