
A New Ideas Machine - jonnym1ller
https://medium.com/we-live-in-the-future/2f4ee803301f
======
jgon
Well gee, if only we had some sort of previous experience with a way to fund
long-term research in basic sciences, the results of which profoundly changed
our world.

Oh wait, we've spent the last 30 years enjoying the fruits of government
funded research from NASA, DARPA, Bell Labs, and others. I know that this may
not be popular with some people on Hacker News, but by and large government
funded research in the basic sciences has been instrumental in transforming
America into the technological powerhouse it currently is.

Peter Thiel is upset we have 140 characters, and not flying cars? I choose to
be blown away that we have a world wide planetary communication grid capable
of delivering information in near real-time. Step back for a moment and let
that blow you away for a while.

I appreciate the enormous advances that industry has layered on top of the
many breakthroughs that have come from public labs, and I also understand that
industry has been invaluable in making many of these breakthroughs popular and
widespread.

But we already have a model for successful R&D that will allow for the sort of
paradigm shifts that Thiel is apparently asking for, and it's not going to
come from a decade of eating ramen in your garage, hoping that you'll finally
get your payoff in the form of an X-Prize. It comes from consistent government
funding towards the best and brightest, not beholden to quarterly results or
the profit motive, from dedicated researchers each doing their part to move
things a step forward.

If you really want breakthroughs that will change the world, then it has to
come with the patience to wait years or decades, to keep funding steady and
high enough that the best aren't impoverished, and the understanding that the
results need to be open and free to all who want them.

------
javajosh
Generally, I like this idea, but it will be interesting to see how it pans
out. My sense is that innovation prizes are mostly the whims of the wealthy -
they are the modern equivalent of patronage. Performance-based patronage with
a dash of magnanimity. Crowd-funded innovation prizes will probably not have
an iconoclast to give the enterprise focus and visibility. That's not deadly,
though: it's easy to imagine a crowd-funding site which solicits two things,
money from ordinary people and endorsements from celebrities. You know, Paris
Hilton's smiling face encouraging you to give $20 to the Singularity Prize.

And while I like the performance-based approach, unlike patronage this places
a great deal of risk on the shoulders of the innovators. If they are
independently wealthy, no problem. But most scientists aren't. Which means
they'll need to get funded, which means dealing with capital. Now VCs are
already, quite directly, in the research game. But even $10M prizes are small.
Indeed, a $100M prize might be too small if there are many competitors and the
challenge takes years. These prizes would have to be a lot bigger to compete
with the kinds of payouts startups can yield.

Or perhaps the idea is that people compete while they are not doing anything
at their day job at the Swiss patent office?

------
shurcooL
Innovation prizes? I could not disagree more.

If you've seen the excellent RSA animate talk "Drive: The surprising truth
about what motivates us"[1] you'll see that it's quite the opposite. When it
comes to mentally challenging tasks, people want autonomy, mastery, and
purpose. Just pay them enough to take the issue of money off the table.

Personally, that really agrees with me. My ideal situation is to be funded via
a sustainable crowd-sourced funding like Gittip, so that I can continue doing
what I'm doing now: _not_ working at a deadend business that's only concerned
about making a profit, where I hate working for my boss. Instead, I want to[2]
create amazing software tools that make our world a better place to live. I
really enjoy software development and want to make it better, funner, more
efficient. I don't care about money beyond just making enough to pay for rent
and food. Money and food are just in my way, stealing away from the time I
could be working.

Thankfully, I still have some savings that'll last me maybe half a year before
I do have to find a way to make a living again. But really, I want to keep
this up.

My current life: wake up each morning, absolutely free of any commitments, and
think to myself: what cool things can I do today to make the world better?

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc#t=294s>

[2] <https://github.com/shurcooL>

~~~
hackinthebochs
Responses like these that always seem to miss the point, while at the same
time are crafted specifically to hit on all the popular tropes ("I don't care
about money beyond just making enough to pay for rent and food"). The point is
that the model you describe isn't appropriate for the types of big problems
the article wants to see solve. It also ignores the fact that money is a big
motivator for a lot of the smart people out there. Not every potential
innovator out there is the "pizza and rent money" type. And for god's sakes,
people need to stop citing that research about work motivation. It gets used
so far out of context that its lost all meaning.

~~~
shurcooL
> "It also ignores the fact that money is a big motivator for a lot of the
> smart people out there."

Maybe it is, I don't know. But it isn't for me. I've been working the last 12
months 8+ hours a day, 5+ days a week on a free, open source project. My total
income during those 12 months? Pretty much $0. Some people say I'm crazy for
not having a monetization plan. But I do it because I believe there's a small
chance, if I'm successful, it will have a lot of value. I hope that when I get
closer to finishing it, it will be very useful to myself and hopefully other
people too.

I would much rather work on what I love and enjoy rather than do anything else
that gives me money. Money is a very low motivator for me. I only need it so I
can keep doing what I'm already doing now.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Honestly, I'd say you are crazy. That lifestyle is simply unsustainable. It's
certainly noble to want to create something that produces value for the world
(and not being concerned with a monetary payout), I'm not knocking that ideal.
It's the fact that you're basically mortgaging your own future to do so is
what is "crazy". Of course, most people can't do this. They either have
dependents or they don't have enough "pizza and rent money" to begin with.

Saying that "money isn't a motivator" is extremely short-sighted. Few people
are motivated purely by money. It's the opportunities that money provides you
that are valuable. Completely ignoring this fact and focusing 100% on some
open source project as if that is the epitome of value creation is just
setting yourself up for a serious reality-check. If you seriously do not see
the value in acquiring money then I'd say you aren't looking at the big
picture. Others definitely shouldn't be encouraged to follow suit. The HN
crowd tends to idolize the noble hacker who isn't concerned about worldly
things, but this is a tragic path for the vast majority of folks who may be
convinced to go down it, likely yourself included. Reality can only be ignored
for so long.

~~~
waterlesscloud
"That lifestyle is simply unsustainable."

It's actually the very definition of sustainable.

~~~
enraged_camel
No it is not. Working on a zero-pay project for a year straight is not
possible unless the person has some money saved up in advance. What's going to
happen when that money runs out? Currently shurcooL's lifestyle is not
sustainable by definition - he has expenses but no income to sustain those
expenses.

------
acgourley
Innovation prizes have a good track record so far, and do seem to act as a
lever in a real sense.

There is a troublesome user experience in any crowd funded innovation prize
though - most prizes will take a long time to pay out, or will never pay out
at all. For the first several years your user experience will be, "Well, I've
committed 100 dollars to 3 projects, but nothing has happened yet."
Kickstarter projects can take years but at least they clearly march towards a
ship date.

Any endeavor here will need to have a mix of big and small projects, and will
also need to find ways to show feel-good incremental progress from the more
ambitious prize pools.

------
michaelwww
Counter-points: Flying cars (bombs) are a dumb idea, the infrastructure to
support globally broadcast 140 char messages is nothing short of amazing, and
innovation is alive and well despite the financial service industries sucking
up America's brightest minds :
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2011/04/talent_and...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2011/04/talent_and_banks)

~~~
wslh
And Paypal was not very innovative... just Thiel doesn't make the irony with
himself.

~~~
michaelwww
Further irony: Paypal options haven't been very easy or full functioning for
Kickstarter projects and siphon off a percentage that could go towards
innovation.

------
yaddayadda
My problem with the X-Prize concept is the also the strength of the X-Prize
concept -- the magnitude of the goal.

For something like an "X-Prize for Everything" to be truly be a successful
there have to be goals that are reachable at all size levels. So instead of
just a grand goal, there could be smaller goals, that are published, have
awards, and all of it should be open sourced/licensed.

There was research on a wiki-like programming contest that I think
demonstrates how important solving both the big and small aspects is, and one
contest implementation to address both[1]. Because of the "winner take all"
approach, I don't think it's a good way to solve grand goal challenges (i.e.
it financially punishes losers).

But something like a VCS that can show contributors to a winning solution. Or
a crowdfunded site where even small goal challenges can be posted, this could
obviously include micro-goal challenges of grand challenges (e.g., a team
trying to win a "human cloning" contest could post a "human eye cloning"
contest).

[1]
[http://www.starchamber.com/gulley/pubs/tweaking/tweaking.htm...](http://www.starchamber.com/gulley/pubs/tweaking/tweaking.html)

------
shaneeb
We, as entrepreneurs, are so obsessed with creating the next "photo sharing
app" when there are some real, hard problems to be solved. Maybe its the daily
dose of blogs incessantly hyping over such ideas, but we might just have lost
sight of the big picture. I speak for myself, but entrepreneurship should be
about more than just this.

------
jjsz
In response to this article I say it should be more than opting in, personally
I think it should be a requirement.

His vision is clear, my vision, I'm sure shared by many, will come true when
companies are able to opt in giving a percentage of their profits towards
innovation funds like the one suggested, local civic engineering / hacking
funds to become an incentive for cross sector collaboration in opening data
from the government and other beneficial entities, and funds for programs like
STEM, FIRST, and NASA or their choice of other NPOs or even NGOs.

All of this on top of receiving a deduction for doing so in their taxes can
drive innovation on a whole new level. Somewhat allowing a a post-benefit
company-like[0] incorporation in all states might lead to this.

Who will NOT opt into this for at least 5 years?

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation>

------
Gravityloss
There are some problems with prizes like the hard-to-avoid arbitrary nature of
the rules and winner-gets-all problems which make big projects risky - you
can't get a loan from the bank for building a project for a competition.

But patents and traditional innovation where you have to found a company and
try to market your stuff might be even worse than that - I think most
technical people don't like the idea of creating their own company. It might
be easier to just open source your project.

I've been thinking about open sourcing some of my (hardware) ideas. It doesn't
seem likely I'd ever create a company and start wasting my time in the pursuit
of unlikely success. I'm not a crazy risk seeking optimistic person.

------
protomyth
Quite a lot of the problem is how we get paid for things on the web.
Advertising as the driver limits the scope of what you can do since you need
to have anchor for the ads. Micropayments have never really panned out as the
fees are still prohibitive[1].

Kickstarter seems to be this in reverse. I come up with an idea and people
fund it based on their desire. Instead of rich patron, I have many "poor"[2]
patrons. A weekly video program on Kickstarters would drive more than big
money prizes.

1) I have seen quite a few grocery stores now putting up the "minimum credit
car purchase $10 due to rising fees".

2) poor in the money contributed sense, not a commentary on their personal
finances

------
robomartin
Want to kickstart a century of unparalleled innovation and entrepreneurship in
the US?

Simple. But you have to cleanup the mess first.

In other words, throw out all that is mismanaged, inefficient and abused and
replace it with an infrastructure fine-tuned to iterate to optimize growth and
innovation.

This means making changes to government, workforce and taxation.

Here's my (incomplete) list:

    
    
      - Pass a constitutional amendment that requires our
        government to operate under a balanced budget
    
      - Establish a maximum cost of government as a percent of
        GDP (or some other metric) in order to prevent a grab
        for more tax revenue to expand government and the 
        pervasive always-spend-more culture
    
      - Reduce government to a bare minimum
    
      - Completely phase out all entitlement programs
    
      - Institute new --smaller-- programs to help those who
        really need them.
    
      - All businesses contribute a small percentage of gross
        to this program (1%?).  The idea is to setup a system
        where government will have reason to work towards 
        improving business activity in order to fund programs.
        Today they reach for optimizing tax revenues as 
        opposed to optimizing economic activity which is far
        more important.
    
      - Make unions illegal for government workers.
        It's a huge conflict of interest: Government workers
        benefit from laws and the workings of government and
        form a unified voting block that is self-serving.
    
      - No lifetime pensions for anyone working in government.
        I'd go as far as making them illegal for anyone, period.
        There is no sensible mathematical formula that supports
        the idea of lifetime pensions.  A person and their family
        ought to be responsible for their own retirement without
        becoming a burden for the rest of society for generations
        to come.
        These are business killers.
    
      - Fire everyone at the patent office
    
      - Create a new patent and trademark system who's priority
        is to optimize to maximize innovation while
        providing reasonable protections for work that requires
        massive R&D
    
      - Flat and low taxes
    
      - No deductions for anyone
    
      - Businesses pay zero taxes
    
      - Businesses contribute 5% of their gross to a national
        R&D fund
    
      - The fund is NOT accessible to anyone in government
    
      - The fund is administered by a team of CEO's from various
        industries.  There could be other layers too.  The main
        point is:  No government claws can reach this fund.
    
      - The fund's goal is to provide financial support, legal
        and operational guidance to entrepreneurs.  Call it a
        mega-incubator

~~~
protomyth
> All businesses contribute a small percentage of gross to this program (1%?).

> Businesses contribute 5% of their gross to a national R&D fund

> Businesses pay zero taxes

Technically, the first two invalidates the third as the first two are taxes.

~~~
andrewflnr
I think the distinction is because those contributions are already earmarked,
and don't go into a general government fund. But yeah, if you get punished for
not paying it, it's a tax.

------
sakopov
Thiel's coming off a bit hypocritical. What was innovative about PayPal?
Facebook? Apparently there was enough innovation there for Thiel to invest his
time and money.

I think to non-technical people there is nothing innovative about Twitter,
Facebook and most of online services offered today. To techies innovation is
in the infrastructures these services are built on & sometimes made publicly
available to others (ie Amazon).

~~~
jameswilsterman
I don't think Thiel is arguing that his investments / companies are exceptions
here. He is also not arguing that 'innovation doesn't occur at all'. He is
arguing that innovation (while still very profitable for the founders and
investors) does not necessarily imply societal gains in wellbeing. So today's
innovations are not materially improving our quality of life in the way that
the discovery of penicillin did. Twitter is fun and can be useful, but life
might be much 'better' if instead we had access to cheap and fast jet packs
(for example).

------
pjdorrell
On a similar theme: "Voted Compensation" -
<http://thinkinghard.com/ip/PublicGood.html>

Basically, a government/taxation-funded prize scheme, where everyone gets to
vote on who should get prizes. Like nationalized crowd-funding, but strictly
after-the-fact (unlike Kickstarter, which is very much before-the-fact).

------
atarian
>"Somewhere between dire straits and dead... we wanted flying cars; instead,
we got 140 characters."

or

>"Somewhere between dire straits and dead... we wanted flying cars; instead,
we got a global communications service.

~~~
quotemstr
We already had several global communication services. What we got was a
gimmick.

