F
unding of R&D has shifted dramatically. Support from the government has waned, from nearly 2% of GDP during the 1960s to 0.6% today. Corporate R&D has grown to 2%. (But) not all R&D is created equal. For companies, spending is speculative with an uncertain, far distant, payoff. “As we became more sophisticated in quantifying things we became less and less willing to take risks. The spreadsheet is the weapon of mass destruction against creative power.”
This is a special time for technology. Five of the world’s seven most valuable companies are U.S. tech firms. But the core innovations underlying Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. are decades old.
