I'm usually on the side of pointing out the squishyness in some numbers, like US productivity and GDP. But we seem not to be in a crisis or even decline in corporate research. Microsoft and Google and, to a limited extent Facebook have taken over from IBM and Xerox and Bell Labs.

The Bell Labs business model was highly artificial, and that artificiality was used as an argument not to break up AT&T. Current structures are more sustainable.

Some ways of structuring corporate research are new: At Google, and at startups funded by Founders Fund, you will find R&D that's been selected for impact.