

The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research - cannedprimates
http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2011/04/death-of-intel-labs-and-what-it-means.html

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microarchitect

      These companies can afford to set up big labs with lots of PhDs and 
      pay them to do whatever the hell they want with little accountability
    

As an anonymous commenter has already pointed out, with the possible exception
of some parts of MSR, there aren't any industrial labs where you can "do
whatever the hell you want". I was offered a position at IBM research and they
were very clear from the outset that they had a specific set of projects they
wanted me to work on. In fact, these projects had less to do with my research
work at grad school and more to do with what I'd done in my previous life as a
software developer. These sense I got from talking to the researchers at IBM
was there is a clear expectation that IBM research would directly impact the
company's bottomline. The group I was to be recruited into was helping solve
some of the hard problems that the rest of the organization simply doesn't
have the expertise to solve.

I dunno about other fields but in my area of work, which is computer
architecture, MSR, Intel and IBM have all written important papers that have
directly influenced the design of many current-generation microprocessors. So,
I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that the labs have failed or that the model is
broken. The model could do with some improvement for sure, but then again,
what couldn't?

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adulau
There is an interesting point-of-view in the comments:

"Microsoft is different because it is a monopoly-supported research lab. The
old Bell Labs had a monopoly underneath it to support it: costs AT*T incurred
to run it could be charged back to consumers. In this case, the monopoly is
windows/office, but that will slowly fade. So my belief is MSR will eventually
go down this road, it just may take 10 or 20 years. Some friends of mine there
also believe this."

In the past years, I have seen different research works funded by Microsoft
Research where is notoriously difficult to use other technologies (e.g. based
on FLOSS) than the one distributed by Microsoft. It seems to be a limitation
factor to innovation or research because you restrict yourself to an existing
technology or product line. Is this still research?

~~~
gaius
MSR probably paid for itself with ClearType alone.

But that is a foolish comment; AT&T really was a monopoly, it had the
government enforcing that on its behalf. It was effectively a branch of the
civil service and its lab an academic department. Windows/Office cash-cow is
really no different from IBM's mainframe cash-cow. They're in a dominant
market position, sure, they're cash-generative, sure, but if they don't do
research, their position becomes ever more uncertain.

~~~
metageek
> _AT &T really was a monopoly, it had the government enforcing that on its
> behalf._

And weren't its tariffs generally set to allow it a certain profit margin? In
that sort of setup, the decision to fund a big, expensive research lab is a
no-brainer: you're guaranteed not to lose money in the short run, and the lab
will probably make you money in the long run.

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codelion
I do not agree with the author's conclusion that the model of industrial
research (MS,HP IBM etc) is broken. We need places in industry to do basic
reserach, if everyone was focuses on engineering or product based research
(Apple, Google) it is not good for the over all ecosystem. Many inventions are
made by pure serendipity we need to give the brilliant minds the freedom to
pursue their research based on curiosity and interest.

~~~
danssig
We do need to pursue it, but a short-term oriented market based system just
can't do it. There is too much financial risk in the kind of research that
needs to be done. And if you do ever manage to produce anything, everyone else
can just copy it. So the best strategy in the market will always be to not
spend anything on research and just steal from those who do.

~~~
khafra
Is there a solution to this multiplayer prisoner's dilemma/coordination
problem besides government-run research labs? I've never heard one.

~~~
orborde
Patents are the solution our society seems to have chosen. I don't know
whether they're "the" solution.

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gerardc
Title: "The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research"

Line 3/4: "I should be clear that not all of Intel Research is closing down --
just the [3] lablets."

...no comment

~~~
chalst
Intel Labs is a part of Intel Research consisting of the three lablets. It is
closing down.

Check <http://www.intel-research.net/>

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apl
So they're redirecting the money towards universities? That's great -- in
principle, at least. Research is their core business.

However, in the current financial/academic climate, I suspect that
universities will simply withdraw internal funding from these departments
(because, well, the CS guys got their money now) which would result in a net
loss.

~~~
chalst
A university that has a reputation for doing this will attract less funding.

This isn't a new phenomenon. Most of the money that comes to successful
departments comes from research funding, usually from the big funding
agencies, and the risk is more that the university admin lavishes attention
and resources on the most visibly successful departments, and so sacrificing
breadth and the strength of their interdisciplinary work. Look at the recent
Kings College London fiasco for a recent example.

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NY_USA_Hacker
The article is part of an old problem: How to connect 'research' with
'business'.

I respond with:

(I) Summary.

(II) Details on Reasons for Failure.

(III) Examples of Solutions.

(IV) Opportunity.

below.

(I) Summary.

Quite generally, there are many ways to make a mess and fail, and this is true
also in connecting research with business and has a very long history.

There is also a long history of success connecting research with national
security, public health, and business.

Net, the main issue is, are results of research really wanted outside of
research? The usual answer is, "Not only no but hell no!", and that's the main
reason for failure.

(II) Details on Reasons for Failure.

One level deeper, the main reason people outside of research don't want
research is that they feel threatened: They would rather just keep doing
things the same old way that has been doing well for them (people not doing
well can't afford research!) and not risk it by being 'upstaged' or
'disrupted' by research.

Also a researcher with good access inside a successful business organization
can be seen as a 'loose cannon on the deck' that might understand the
'secrets' of the success of the business, use research to find a better way,
and start a competing business.

The usual situation in business is: (1) Organize like at Ford 100 years ago
where the supervisor knows more and the subordinates are just to apply labor
to the ideas, direction, and work of the supervisor, (2) pay everyone
relatively little, thus, making sure no one feels free to take any risks at
all, (3) evaluate everyone on very narrow criteria of getting the present work
done with severe consequences for any deviations and, thus, for anything new,
ensure no upside and a lot of downside, (4) for anything new inside the
organization, kill it off ASAP, (5) for anything very new or advanced outside
the organization, f'get about it.

So, net, the only one in the organization with any freedom to do anything new
is the CEO, and generally he is too busy just running the existing business
and not technical enough to do or supervise anything like 'research'.

Inside a business research lab, usually the goals are at best a mess. So, the
path to the business bottom line is not wanted or not clear, but the usual
academic criteria do not apply either.

So, without good criteria, the organization is vulnerable to the long,
standard list of organizational dysfunctionalities. E.g., the place can become
a 'caste' system where the head guys defend themselves with 'cliques' based on
incompetence, race, gender, ethnicity, etc., and all the non-manager "worker
bees" are expected to keep quiet and out of sight and maybe just publish
papers or patents.

So, usually big business organizations just will NOT 'innovate'. This is a
problem, but its 'flip side' is an opportunity central to 'Hacker News'!

(III) Examples of Solutions.

Again, one of the crucial points is for the people in the business actually to
want the results of research, and at times there have been solutions at AT&T
Bell Labs, DoD, NIH, CDC, etc.

One solution has been illustrated at Renaissance Technologies run by Jim
Simons: He is a good mathematician (Chern-Simons), long Chair of the math
department at SUNY Stony Brook, and at Renaissance sometimes paid himself $2
billion or so a year. Once the Brookhaven National Lab people wanted to
collide some gold atoms to create a 'quark plasma', couldn't get the money
they needed, so Simons wrote them a check, maybe $20 million or so. So, he
wanted the results of research, had a reputation for hiring mathematical
physicists from Russia, and was not threatened.

Another example has been Westvaco Paper: They specialized in 'specialty
papers', e.g., milk cartons and table tops. Basically they have regarded
themselves as an 'applied chemical engineering' company.

They had a research lab between DC and Baltimore: Each six months the lab
submitted its budget to the NY HQ, and HQ always wanted to increase the
budget, and Research always said, "No.".

Why? My old notes have:

(1) The research group worked only on problems of their own choice and did not
accept problems assigned to them. Generally in research, problem selection is
both important and difficult, and here the real experts did the problem
selection.

(2) Projects started by the research group ran from about two months to about
two years. Only about one project in ten led to an implementation.

(3) When research believed they had a project worthy of implementation, they
would approach the General Manager (GM) of the appropriate operating group and
make their proposal. The decision to implement was up to the GM. Here we see
some the importance of having the business organization involved in the
implementation.

(4) If an implementation was made, then the financial value was measured by
careful auditing.

(5) For the first three years of implementation, half the financial
improvement was credited to the operating group and the other half to
research. After the first three years, all the improvement was credited to the
operating group and none to research. Also, the GM's bonus could be affected
by these results. It did help that most of the GM's were Ph.D.'s in chemical
engineering.

(6) With these rules, the research group returned to the company, long run,
about three dollars for each dollar in their budget.

So, that's one way to run an industrial research lab.

(IV) Opportunity.

For the 'Hacker News' community, the flip side of the sad, old situation is a
new opportunity:

(1) Find a problem where a much better solution should lead to big bucks.

(2) Have the founder, CEO do some research to get a much better solution, good
enough to be much better than anything else and advanced enough to be
difficult to duplicate or equal and, thus, provide a good 'technological
barrier to entry'.

Note: IMHO, for the relevant research for 'information technology' the key is
not 'computer science' but selected, advanced topics in pure and applied math.

(3) Implement the solution in software and offer it to users via the Web or
cloud.

(4) Buy a nice yacht, rinse, and repeat.

For the research part, the main training for research is the Ph.D. The
difficulty of Ph.D. programs shows that learning how to do good research and
doing it are not easy. Thus, hopefully, the founder, CEO doing the research
has a good, relevant Ph.D. This way, no one in the organization is threatened
by the research that helps start the organization.

Once again, the ways big organizations find to make messes can be corrected by
entrepreneurship.

So, don't curse the big organizations. Instead, use their problems as an
opportunity to be a successful entrepreneur and buy a yacht.

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NY_USA_Hacker
A famous recipe for rabbit stew starts off, "First catch a rabbit ...."

A recipe for applied research starts off, "First get an application ...."

The article has,

"These companies can afford to set up big labs with lots of PhDs and pay them
to do whatever the hell they want with little accountability, but maybe this
model is no longer sustainable."

Thanks a lot former Harvard prof: That's an insult to Ph.D. holders, cuts them
off at the knees, and is a great recipe for Ph.D. unemployment: Or, just why
will the lowest non-Ph.D. manager in a management chain want to bet their
budget and part of their career on "PhDs and pay them to do whatever the hell
they want with little accountability"?

Just what is it about wasting time you find so attractive?

If you want to sit in a small, closed, dark room and engage in intellectual
self-abuse, first make, marry, and/or inherit some money and then go for it.
For the rest of us who sacrificed a LOT and got a Ph.D., JUST to be, and ONLY
to be, better qualified to contribute to both top and bottom lines of
accounting income statements, please cut the insults.

