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Accelerating Innovation with Leadership

gatesnotes.com

73 pointscryptozeus24 comments

The same public "government largesse" that Gates credits with the microchip and internet is what Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google et al have constantly worked to erode with closed-source, walled-garden ecosystems. They all would have been unable to build their empires on top of the very ecosystem that today they try to cultivate.

Blue sky research should be open. Last mile product development and products themselves can be closed source. Else, how do you create profits and value for shareholders? So far, except Apple, the others have made the outputs of their research labs open: published papers, demos, packages like TensorFlow, etc. Besides, there is a division of labor: govt, with its altruistic mission does open blue-sky research. Companies, OTOH maximize profits and the good ones that can afford to, also do open basic research. I don't see his vision to be counter to this.

The problem is, what qualifies as a “last mile product”? AOL before 1991, and CompuServe before 1989 were complete packages, essentially entire Internets, provided by one company. Neither one of them probably liked the Internet to come into a position to replace a large part of their products. It’s the same everywhere – everybody want to commoditize their complements, but almost every product is a complement to somebody else’s product.

They sacreficed progress for their own pockets and now are asking us to not do the same.

I wish there was a technical name for this cycle! The pattern seems to happen in every industry over time.

1. Someone sets out to change the world and make a lot of money by building a business around a new technology.

2. In order to grow the business, they build barriers around their technology / market. This takes the form of closed platforms, patents, safety regulations, etc. (This is a neutral point, I'm not trying to call anyone evil for doing this).

3. Once the entrepreneurs are prosperous, with good intentions, they lobby for the public to pay for essentially remaking their businesses in a more open way. There's the obvious irony in this stage, as they have to fight the very barriers they erected, and I think some people get mad here, because those barriers end up costing the public more.

I actually think this is a healthy cycle. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who are satisfied with 1 and 2, and never put the effort into 3. I think applauding the people who have the strength and drive to get to 3 is going to help the world become better, faster. I don't think there's a reason to hold malice against entrepreneurs for building those barriers, if we did, we will just have less people lobbying for the good things in the world.

> I wish there was a technical name for this cycle! The pattern seems to happen in every industry over time.

Seizing the means of production? Socialization of industry?

Gates' top four priorities :

Provide everyone on earth with affordable energy without contributing to climate change.

Develop a vaccine for HIV and a cure for neurodegenerative diseases.

Protect the world from future health epidemics, which might be more infectious than Ebola and more deadly than Zika.

Give every student and teacher new tools so all students get a world-class education.

I am not even sure how to measure the third and probably not the second. So I am quite surprised to see them.

I ought to go check out the Copenhagen consensus site to see how they compare.

Very good priorities. I would also add the importance of reducing global militarism, and making progress on dismantling nuclear weapons.

Linux Fanboy here saying Bill Gates would make an awesome president.

True. At the same time, I believe he can do more good for the world as a private individual than as the President of the USA

Depth vs breadth. The president has a lot of power, but has to deal with a zillion things every day. As a private individual, he can think deeply about one (or 10) things as long as he needs to to find a great answer.

He's certainly someone i'd say can handle both depth and breadth very well. I'd agree with you, generally, but i'm not super enthusiastic about any of my options this year.

disclaimer Not interested on being sold on a candidate. I've made up my mind.

Linux fanboy here saying Bill Gates would make an awful president, but still better than the options presented this year.

Don't governments already do this by giving universities large research grants? http://research.fas.harvard.edu/funding-sources#federal

We could triple the grants, but that money has to come from somewhere and every corner of society has a vocal group of voters who want that money. If the future US federal leader makes it a priority to cure the HIV epidemic in foreign countries while taking away cancer research funding or slashing social security that sounds more like political suicide than leadership.

I wish he would elaborate on his education vision too. "New tools" is totally vague. Khan academy and other remote tutors?

But I think his point is that they're grants without a specific end goal (i.e mankind on extraterrestrial rock). Having a deadline with a tangible end-result can be beneficial.

> Today, we are far more productive because of the IT revolution.

Actually, this claim is not supported by the numbers. Our labor productivity (edit: growth) is actually decreasing [1]. But obviously I agree we need to prioritize science funding, whereas IT is a very small part of what's necessary to be productive.

The title is also incredibly cringe-worthy.

[1] The POTUS. http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21708216-americas-pre...

US productivity growth has been slowing, though productivity itself is still more or less increasing and has roughly doubled from 1989. That's remarkable given the scale of the US economy.

See the "Max" timeline view here to see US productivity over time: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/productivity

Yes, I'm sorry, you're correct. Growth in productivity is slowing, concomitant with the "IT revolution." The argument still stands that Gates's claim that the IT sector can be viewed as a driver of productivity is unsupported.

I would like to hear a rational discussion that compares how each candidate stands on these issues. I'm not very political and I don't have a good grasp on who has said what.

They each have websites with their platform up in full. Most discussion you will find will be each side spinning the other side's platform or outright lying about it. Just read it yourself and decide

I don't think any of those things he suggested would work. See going to the moon wasn't a goal in itself that would directly cure a disease or solve a problem. The fallout from going to the moon did though. I think the goal needs to be scientific in nature and involves humans doing extraordinary things.

I think something better would be: humans in orbit around the sun, visit an asteroid, setup a moon base, send an entire crew to the bottom of a trench (establish a base there)....

Just my thoughts!

Great point is about political innovation, no one talks about it. There is no way to measure this....obamacare was a good idea but complete disaster on execution

An important point here is, that public sector institutions can rarely compete on salary with the private sector, and thus, innovation in regards to things like cutting edge technologies get insanely hard. Grants, education and a healthy regulation policy on the capital markets is most likely one of the best things a government can do for technological innovation (which covers pretty much all aspects of our society) today.

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