Applications is Where You Make the Money

From Zanecorpwiki

Under predominant capitalist/free market ideasref group=notesIt is generally useful to distinguish between capitalism and the free market. Capitalism is the idea that some interesting projects require the concentration of capital beyond a human scale. The free market is an economic model that proposes that the most efficient/best way to utilize economic resources is to assign ownership of those resources to actors at the nodes, and give over as much control as possible of those resources to individual owners of those resources. These ideas are compatible, but also somewhat orthogonal. The market or the economy in the western world is a thing which is legally and culturally based on both these ideas and represents a conglomeration and specific implementation of free market capitalism which is borne out of, but is not a pure representation of the theoretical concepts./ref there is often a tension between fundamental and particular activities within any given domain. Fundamental ideas/theory is the fuel for innovation, but money changes hands almost exclusively at the particular implementation level.

To give an example most would be familiar with, think about cars. A lot of very smart people have spent a lot of time and energy figuring out how gasoline works, the physics of thermodynamics, the chemistry, materials science, no to mention basic mechanical principals. Eventually, this all culminated in the idea of creating engines to turn fuel into work. However, when you buy a car almost all your money goes to the car company. The company that makes the cars gets 90% of the money for doing 10% of the work.

Of course the researchers--as I'll call them--get by okay. This is because as a society, we realize that this fundamental research is what enables us to come up with new products and technologies. The people that understand how stuff gets done and how the economy grows know it's in their best interest--because it's in everyone's best interest--to keep this fundamental research going.

Software development is no different. Everything from Microsoft Office to Twitter to the code that runs the routers that make the Internet itself possible is written in C, Java, Ruby, PHP, and uses a lot of ideas, algorithms, and libraries invented or discovered by researchers. Just like a car, when you buy Microsoft Office or use the Internet, all your money is going to Microsoft or an ISP, or anyone other than the people that created the huge base of code that makes that last step possible.

Not as many people get that we need fundamental software research (which I'll term fundamental development) or even what it would look like.ref group=notesI'd like to see a survey, but the idea is this: imagine you ask 100 people two things. First, Describe your understanding of 'fundamental chemistry research'. You could also ask about physics, biology, etc. Second, you ask Describe your understanding of 'fundamental software development'. I'm fairly certain that a lot more people would be able to give meaningful answers about the former than the latter./ref This is partly because the industry is still not mature, and partly because the domain is captured by business interests in a way that others are not.ref group=notesExactly how software development is captured by business is a complex subject, but can be easily illustrated. Think of a famous physicist. You probably think Einstein, or Newton, or Hawking. Now think of a famous software developer. If you don't know names, fine. Think the guy that started Google. You've probably heard of Bill Gates. Maybe you thought Steven Jobs. All the software guys are business people. A lot of people probably thought of guys, like Steve Jobs, who aren't even developers at all. The point is, we know the physicists that do the fundamental research in physical science that makes so much of our technology and gizmos possible. Very few people know the computer scientist that do the fundamental research that makes our software possible. I've met very few people outside of those with a formal education in computer science that have the first idea who Turing or Goedel are./ref

Outline for remainder:

• business capture means that software development is very applications driven
  • inverts innovation--end use should be a pull, not a push on innovation
  • innovation becomes insular
  • higher risk of blind alleys--myopic innovation reduces flexibility--all eggs in one basket
• Google is one company that gets it
  • founded by fundamental developers; it's the one company founded on an algorithm
  • understand value of fundamental development

Notes

references group=notes /