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Comment by coliveira | Hacker News Reader

> business folks are primarily the ones deciding what's funded

A large part of the money that was funned into research at Xerox came from the government itself in the form of tax breaks and other benefits. So it was not a big sacrifice for Xerox to maintain that lab. If they had to change course was due to government policy becoming less interested in industrial innovation and more focused on offshoring and financial gains for the last decades.

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"The Idea Factory" is a great book about Bell Labs, it doesn't talk about tax breaks or subsidies as much as the need to provide some kind of public benefit to stave off the anti-trust regulator. Which is why they basically gave away the the transistor and the semi-conductor. The Bell system also had a LOT of money, kind of like the Google of their day, so they could fund "moonshots"

"Dealers of Lightning" is about Xerox Parc and is also a great read if you're interested in the subject.

I don't think the level of tax breaks has really changed between then and now for R&D, though maybe reducing the headline tax rate reduced the benefit of them? But I think the main issue is that the money wormhole stopped working - Industrial research labs seem to be a kind of luxury good

> A large part of the money that was funned [sic] into research at Xerox came from the government itself

Do you have any support for that? For example, Xerox's financial disclosure forms should still be available.

Because I think it's wrong. The government funded academic projects, not commercial ones.

You don't need to look so far away: tax breaks for R&D are still a thing, in the 70s and 80s they were even more important for these giant companies. Government contracts were also a big income source for Xerox, AT&T, IBM, and others. Moreover, research labs were basically a method for companies to move discoveries from publicly funded Universities into private hands. They naturally benefited from receiving graduates and discoveries that started on publicly funded research institutions.

In other words: no, you don't have any support.

I have no obligation of doing research for you.

You're the one making the extravagant claims, not me. like

>Government contracts were also a big income source for Xerox, AT&T, IBM, and others.

Don't get offended if you get challenged on that. I don't think you actually know anything specific here.

You're making a fool of yourself. There is nothing extravagant about saying government gives money for industrial labs. Here are a few that you are lazy enough not to see:

High Taxes Brought Us Xerox PARC and Bell Labs [1]

PARC, a Xerox company, today announced it has secured funding from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency [2]

NTIA grants Verizon, AT&T-led open RAN group $42M [3]

Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and others partner with US government on AI research [4]

Governor Hochul announced a $10 billion partnership with the semiconductor industry such as IBM [5]

[1] https://slate.com/business/2012/07/xerox-parc-and-bell-labs-...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20231211024425/https://www.parc....

[3] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/old_latest-stories/ntia-gran...

[4] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-microsoft-google-and-o...

[5] https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-1...

You can say that again [1]:

[1] Biden to inject Intel with CHIPS fab cash 'next week':

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/biden_intel_chips_fun...

He can say it again, but it'll be doubly stupid the 2nd time.

The discussion was about PARC in the 70's. Not Intel now.

in your little woke bubble, a high marginal tax rate == a gift to corporations that spend a lot. Duh. Do some math. That's what marginal rates mean.

[2] doesn't work as a link.

In any case, all your links seem to be current, not 1970's.

Give us ANY Xerox product that was government-funded. Don't say "ARPANET" because that was not a Xerox product. Nor an IBM or Microsoft product.

As for the CHIPS Act: that seems to be fairly recent, doesn't it?

You don't, but then your position is worthless and you have convinced no one that what you claim is true. Right now, I'm treating you very closely to being a liar.

(first I had to figure out who "you" was :) )

You're right. He's just throwing wild numbers around and mixing up eras.

You might find this blog post of interest: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-am...

Bingo

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