Re:The death of corporate research labs
by netcan on Thursday May 21, 2020 @07:11AM
(#23257001)
Ultimately, a lot depends on individuals. Incentives, systems, and such can make things common or uncommon, but innovation tends to be uncommon anyway.
Google was founded, and mostly run, by people with a pretty broad academic interest in science and technology. Pioneering ai breakthroughs is what they wanted and they find ways to make it logical for google to do. Both the existence and the nature of their R&D reflects that. Apple or Microsoft were not. They're interested in products. What rocks Zuch's boat is is reach. I don't think he'd be that excited about purely technological breakthroughs. He'd only be excited about ways these can extend FB's footprint.
Re:The death of corporate research labs
by tellarin on Friday May 22, 2020 @01:43AM
(#23268994)
Microsoft Research is one of the biggest and most well known industry research labs and it's been around since 1991, so I don't think the comparison to Apple applies.
Google was founded, and mostly run, by people with a pretty broad academic interest in science and technology. Pioneering ai breakthroughs is what they wanted and they find ways to make it logical for google to do. Both the existence and the nature of their R&D reflects that. Apple or Microsoft were not. They're interested in products. What rocks Zuch's boat is is reach. I don't think he'd be that excited about purely technological breakthroughs. He'd only be excited about ways these can extend FB's footprint.