The 10-year research-to-production timeline is the key lesson. Today's funding (VC or government grants) demands results in 2-3 years. We've systematically eliminated the "patient capital" that creates foundational infrastructure imho...
It took me 33.5 years to solve a problem that was important to me.
A solution did exist after all. And the conceptual/mathematical walls, mazes, and unexpected territories I was forced to traverse, taught me and gave me knew ways to understand problems.
I also learned the value of luck.
I thought it would take 3-5 months. 3-5 years, at most. (Not as an occupation, but as a side quest.)
Ignorance, incurable optimism, and hope are capricious sirens.
I clearly didn’t understand the problem like I thought. And my “quest” could easily have become a cautionary Don Quixote tale.
That experience gives me great appreciation for the famous organizations and labs that gave many minds the time to pursue, and help each other pursue, hard problems. Whose breakthroughs we still benefit from. Working somewhere like that would be a dream.
The pattern is adopted from the Soviet Union. Take whatever lessons from that you will.
There is no lesson to take from the number 5. There are lessons to take from longer term planning.
That’s your own nonsensical strawman, not mine. Who in their sane mind would stoop to such silly numerology? That sounds positively medieval.
What were you even thinking when you wrote your reply? You’re going to really have to unpack your thought process for me to understand what you said.
What kind of purity test bullshit rhetoric are you using here? Whenever you find yourself saying, “you need to explain yourself”, step back and question things.
Have you tried reading the thread instead of jumping on a guy for wrongspeak?
The Soviet connection is really not that hard to follow. They were discussing development cycles. Whether China, which is a communist country with a “5 year economic plan”, is successful due to that 5 year plan.
So it’s very relevant to mention the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a communist country, it “invented” the 5 year economic plan, and it failed spectacularly.
Its origin is important to know, to interpret that specificity. Did Feynman derive five years for innovations. No? Does the Chinese calendar have five years per “year week”? No.
So where did “5” come from? The Soviet Union.
Now questions about how well 5 years works can focus on historical successes and failures, instead of “where the heck did that number come from?”.
Ok. Well don't be coy, show your work.
Don't forget all the cries of "governments can't do anything, only free market commercial entities can innovate!"
To be fair, that's an ideological assertion that is observed almost exclusively in the US. Not that state entities are known for their peak efficiency outside of the US, but neither are private companies.
This is nonsense. VCs have been happily investing in technology on 5 to 10 year timelines; traditional VC funds were raised with 7 to 10 year tenors.
> We've systematically eliminated the "patient capital" that creates foundational infrastructure
Did you miss all the space and fusion funding? Biotech? Flying cars? The folks on this board complaining investors have infinite timelines for results?