4 ms·
Irony alert! Note their conclusion: " It may well be that other organizations -- smaller firms and universities -- are making up the shortfall in investment i
by riemannzeta 12y ago
Irony alert! Note their conclusion:
" It may well be that other organizations -- smaller firms and universities -- are making up the shortfall in investment in research. According to this interpretation, what is happening is a reallocation of research from large corporate labs to more efficient cient organizations."
The suggestion that universities might be more efficient than private corporations at anything is almost comic.
But this isn't an error. There is actually something quite profound at work. It is indeed the case that "smaller firms and universities" are more efficient at commercializing new technology than most large corporations. But it's not the smaller firms and universities independently; it's the smaller firms and universities together as one super-entity.
In Silicon Valley, the grad students quit and found a startup. Their advisor joins the Board. The university creates the IP. The startup commercializes it.
The puzzle for me ten years ago was this: Where is the licensing revenue for the universities? If they're creating the IP, then how come they're not getting anything back?
The answer is that they are, but in the form of alumni donations. :-D
- ghaff 12y agoThe big research universities also absolutely have technology licensing operations. However, in the case of MIT for example, [1] it seems as if the net direct profit they make is fairly modest. (They bring in about $80 million a year but a lot of that seems to either go to costs or paid out royalties, etc.) [1] http://web.mit.edu/tlo/www/about/faq.html http://web.mit.edu/tlo/www/about/faq.html
- riemannzeta 12y agoYup. Compare that to MIT endowment's annual return. And guess where (a big chunk of) the MIT endowment gets invested (indirectly through VC funds)? The same startups that their alumni are founding.
- pm90 12y agoThat's pretty fascinating actually. Its like the alumni have formed a close-knit network that provides both capital and expertise. I didn't know endowments worked that way...I was suspecting they would be mostly invested in "Safe" stocks and bonds.
- brohee 12y agoFew organization are better equipped to perform a good due diligence, not that surprising...
- anigbrowl 12y agoHence the widespread practice of granting preference to the children of alumni at admissions time. Only Caltech (among the Ivies) eschews this practice and admits on academic merit alone, I believe.
- santaclaus 12y agoWhen did Caltech join the Ivy League?
- anigbrowl 12y agoLazy writing on my part, sorry. I was thinking of Ivy League as a proxy for 'private high quality university' rather than historical meaning.
- Chinjut 12y ago"The suggestion that universities might be more efficient than private corporations at anything is almost comic." It's not a priori implausible to me. Why shouldn't there be things universities do better than corporations? They're different entities with different structures; it makes perfect sense that they'd have different strengths and weaknesses.
- riemannzeta 12y agoUniversities are to organizations as cockroaches are to organisms. They're ridiculously inefficient and bureaucratic; but they're also the only form of organization likely to be around in 10,000 years.
- TaylorAlexander 12y agoThat is an absurd and useless analogy. You're essentially just declaring your opinion without anything to support it, which does nothing to further the conversation.
- pound 12y agoUniversities are bureaucratic, yes. in the same time you can encounter "academic" people there, who are genuinely interested in doing research, even for crappy money. That what they are, that's their nature. In corporations it's more often some a*holes working towards promotions/power not giving a shit about "advancement" or greater good for humanity/society. All IMHO of course, but based on personal experience in both areas.