I guess part of the reason must be that AT&T was supporting Bell Labs with its monopoly profits, and that’s part of the “secret sauce” that none of the post-split organizations could inherit. What about other monopoly-supported research labs (such as Microsoft Research) though, whose leaders must have Bells Labs in mind as a model? Seems like there’s still something we don’t understand?
As a matter of historical origination, Microsoft (and Apple) looked much more closely at Xerox/PARC then at Bell Labs. As I understand the story, Microsoft Research was supposed to be a more tightly applied and business-oriented version of PARC, which itself was more applied than Bell Labs.
It’s worth considering that Microsoft Research was established shortly before the modern cost-cutting phase of the corporation, and the average lifespan has been plummeting the entire time. AT&T lasted 100+ years, the average corporate lifespan is now expected to shrink to 10.
We’ll need a different organizational form to permit the long view, I think.
We’ll need a different organizational form to permit the long view, I think.
I included “countries” in my original question and I think some countries (e.g., China) probably have the necessary long view, and probably wants to replicate Bell Labs (in, e.g., the Chinese Academy of Sciences), and must be missing some other element of what made it so successful.
I considered the government question, because I think that as an institution they clearly can execute the long view, and I also agree that governments like China’s even seem to have the long view culturally ingrained. I don’t know what the answer is, but I am confident it has more than one component, because I can identify two from the American government research example.
The first is drawn from the history of PARC again: when JC Licklider was getting funding through ARPA (which built the community that eventually was transported almost wholesale to PARC) he broke from the traditional government funding model of short-term grants on a project basis by requesting long-term grants on a person basis. I think that if the old grant model was still in effect, even if everything else stayed the same, they would have been far less productive.
The second is the War on Cancer, which was a political event that heavily impacted the way funding worked across research in the United States. Normally increased resources are considered a good thing, but in this case it came with a bunch of process changes attached: namely researches had to be able to explain how cancer treatment would benefit before they got the funds. I expect that there is always some probability of a large external event like this disrupting the incentives, even if they were in excellent shape before.
To summarize, I think it is very hard for any institution to definitely not do what they would normally do, and then even if they succeed an unexpected change may be forced upon them anyway.
If Bell Labs succeeded because there was little social coercion, the Chinese will have a hard time replicating it with their collectivist culture.
Paying researchers based on their ability to publish papers in journals with high impact factor the way the Chinese do seems also a system that creates bad incentives.
I guess part of the reason must be that AT&T was supporting Bell Labs with its monopoly profits, and that’s part of the “secret sauce” that none of the post-split organizations could inherit. What about other monopoly-supported research labs (such as Microsoft Research) though, whose leaders must have Bells Labs in mind as a model? Seems like there’s still something we don’t understand?
As a matter of historical origination, Microsoft (and Apple) looked much more closely at Xerox/PARC then at Bell Labs. As I understand the story, Microsoft Research was supposed to be a more tightly applied and business-oriented version of PARC, which itself was more applied than Bell Labs.
It’s worth considering that Microsoft Research was established shortly before the modern cost-cutting phase of the corporation, and the average lifespan has been plummeting the entire time. AT&T lasted 100+ years, the average corporate lifespan is now expected to shrink to 10.
We’ll need a different organizational form to permit the long view, I think.
I included “countries” in my original question and I think some countries (e.g., China) probably have the necessary long view, and probably wants to replicate Bell Labs (in, e.g., the Chinese Academy of Sciences), and must be missing some other element of what made it so successful.
I considered the government question, because I think that as an institution they clearly can execute the long view, and I also agree that governments like China’s even seem to have the long view culturally ingrained. I don’t know what the answer is, but I am confident it has more than one component, because I can identify two from the American government research example.
The first is drawn from the history of PARC again: when JC Licklider was getting funding through ARPA (which built the community that eventually was transported almost wholesale to PARC) he broke from the traditional government funding model of short-term grants on a project basis by requesting long-term grants on a person basis. I think that if the old grant model was still in effect, even if everything else stayed the same, they would have been far less productive.
The second is the War on Cancer, which was a political event that heavily impacted the way funding worked across research in the United States. Normally increased resources are considered a good thing, but in this case it came with a bunch of process changes attached: namely researches had to be able to explain how cancer treatment would benefit before they got the funds. I expect that there is always some probability of a large external event like this disrupting the incentives, even if they were in excellent shape before.
To summarize, I think it is very hard for any institution to definitely not do what they would normally do, and then even if they succeed an unexpected change may be forced upon them anyway.
If Bell Labs succeeded because there was little social coercion, the Chinese will have a hard time replicating it with their collectivist culture.
Paying researchers based on their ability to publish papers in journals with high impact factor the way the Chinese do seems also a system that creates bad incentives.