In response to “‘Disruptive’ science has declined — and no one knows why”, Max Kozlov, Nature
By Dr. Patrick Sullivan, Oceanit CEO & Founder and author of “Intellectual Anarchy — The Art of Disruptive Innovation”, Ingram Press (2020).
In response to ‘Disruptive’ science has declined — and no one knows why, by Max Kozlov (January 4, 2023)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04577-5
The recent January 04 Nature article by Max Kozlov entitled “Disruptive’ science has declined — and no one knows why” points out what everybody already knows who works in the field of science, engineering and technology development. The big question is “why?”
I have had the honor of working with approximately 70 great universities and some of their most outstanding performers, as well as many government agencies and some venture capitalists over the last 37 years and wanted to share my perspective on the “why” question. There are many reasons, but if I were to summarize, the scientific communities are becoming wimps, afraid of failing, afraid of looking bad, afraid of getting rejected, afraid of under-performing, afraid of reaching too far, thinking too big, for fear that they will be perceived by their peers as failures. However, the thing to note is that this is really an ecosystem problem with multiple co-conspirators.
Let’s start with universities. University research has become its own echo chamber whereby publications are the main metric of performance, and achieving tenure — the gravy grain whereby “comfortably numb” faculty can have a desk and place to work, but nobody can make them work hard or take on difficult projects. Don’t get me wrong, there are great researchers that push the edges of science and knowledge. We have had the pleasure of working with some intellectual giants and have drafted them into what might come across as “crazy” endeavors. For example, we have been working with Noam Chomsky to develop a human-style artificial intelligence, using linguistics as a model of human cognition. When we later asked Noam to collaborate with us on the application of “causality and biology” his response was “I’m in!” Since nobody has figured out why some people get diseases, like cancer, except through epidemiology, or massive correlation, the notion that there is a connection between cause and outcome was intriguing. It was not lost on Chomsky that this is a very, very difficult problem. Moreover, he was excited to help with an what is considered an “outrageous” problem. There are others, but what these folks have in common is self-confidence and an unquenchable curiosity about how the universe works. Moreover, they are attracted to the idea of beneficially impacting the world, regardless of how difficult the problem.
Next, we should examine funding institutions. Funding institutions primarily supported by the U.S. government exist to further knowledge, as well as help produce talent and ensure U.S. National competitiveness. In other words, they keep university researchers employed to help underwrite national needs. This is a very positive endeavor, until it’s not. A great example is the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an echo chamber of like-minded thinkers that are conscripted to incrementally research traditional ideas and notions, what I call “polishing the rock.” Make no mistake, many difficult problems require consistent and reliable funding, we all understand this. However, the real issue is that ideas that are not mainstream are not fund-worthy. That’s why DARPA, not NIH, underwrote the early risk for the mRNA vaccine. Whereas NIH might consider slightly different versions of the traditional approach to vaccine development, they are widely known as “risk adverse” and unlikely to support anything other than what they already support. This has played out in full view with the recent launching of ARPA-H — the Advanced Research Project Agency for Healthcare. The first year was funded at roughly $1B, however, the battle for control has been ongoing for a while. On the one hand, the NIH institutionalists want to keep control inside NIH. On the other hand, there is a legitimate concern is that if NIH gets another $1B, it’s likely to do the same thing it’s already doing. Former DARPA program manager Geoff Ling, and others, have been advocating for a separate organization that reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, versus the NIH director, thereby giving the program “top cover” to engage in “high risk and disruptive” research ideas. Nevertheless, the overall momentum is in NIH’s favor, which is bad for the U.S., as well as all humans and society.
Note that all Federal agencies have “risk appetites” that go up and down, including those like DARPA. A colleague I worked with in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) at lunch once asked me, “how do you think they take failure in the building (The Pentagon)?” His concern was that if something is considered risky, and performers and managers fall short, they get hammered. After working with many of these folks, in my opinion, this comes from an instructional lack of understanding of what research & development (R&D) really means. As it was once described to me, managements expectation is that it’s like making hot instant oatmeal — just add hot water and stir. They (management) fail to understand what we refer to as the “emotional content” of research, those willing to risk, those that learn to learn from all aspects of their efforts. I like to use a surfing analog — when you paddle into a big wave you may have a frightening wipe-out. However, when you have an awesome ride, it makes all the risk worth it. We have a category for these research performers that excel at disruptive innovation — we call them “techno warriors.” They are an elite class of thinkers that learn fast, but more importantly, they get up when knocked down. The interesting thing I’ve seen is that the more they do, the better they become. It’s similar to the difference between a good armature athlete and a professional athlete. The professional athlete consistently hits more shots than they lose. Working with these elite athletes, techno warriors, is one of my great pleasures and why I enjoy what we do.
Finally, let’s not forget venture capital. Venture Capital is an important tool, but it’s lost its initial focus on disruptive ideas and has become risk adverse. Today, VC funding tends to underwrite programs with very little technical risk whereby the VC can generate a top quartile IRR (internal rate of return), which is time dependent. In other words, the VC wants to put $$ into the company and quickly get $$ out with at least a 10X return. This has made web based, mobile apps a good opportunity for quick returns. Additionally, since VC’s rely on a “2 and 20” model, getting 2% fees on capital deployed and a 20% of carry on the exit, they have become more like hedge funds. This has been on full display with Sequoia’s investment into FTX, whereby they invested over $200mm into a company without understanding its financial condition or having a seat on the board. it’s easy money and everyone is having a good time — until they aren’t.
To increase the truly disruptive innovation we all expect, things like flying cars, we need to address the entire ecosystem. However, we can start today by changing the way funding institutions underwrite research by encouraging high risk, high impact projects.
