An attempt to use Hi during FOO Camp to capture a (not-so-secret) session. Looking at fundraising for things outside the usual suspects of photo apps, social networks, etc. Things that may have no return, and certainly no quick return. Things extremely longburn, longthink, longnow, etc etc.

Topics

• raising money for research not industry work
• long vs short term thinking
• exploratory vs Ship! Ship! Ship!
• universities acting more like startup incubators
• ARPA used to be a way to $$
• “moore’s law means you can buy the future at a premium” — Kay
• even google’s crazy research projects are all product driven/applied
• state of ‘patronage’?
• patronage comes at a price, celebrity model, too constrained, unstable
• corporate sponsorship for early access (I.e., media lab)
• harder to get sponsors in the age of the patent troll
• still, early access meaningless in research - focus needs to be foundational
• google x and Microsoft research - interesting, semi-open corporate labs
• combined model between industry innovation and research?
• breakout labs? Too focused on ‘things’
• again: research output is often an intangible, unshippable
• general education around value of basic research - how to better engrain that in the culture
• ‘road’ / ‘truck’ model and forgetting the value of roads